Several important roads run through Guildford. For hundreds of years the town has also been the centre for local trade. These factors both led to the development of a number of inns, which had a reputation for their size and quality.
Trade increased in the 17th century, when Portsmouth’s role as an important naval base grew. Guildford is conveniently placed halfway between Portsmouth and London and coach travellers often broke their journey with an overnight stay in one of the inns in the town. Stage coaches could do the journey in one day, changing horses at the end of every 10 or 12 mile stage. However, road surfaces were often very bad, which slowed the journey so that it often took up to 16 hours.
Turnpikes were introduced in the 18th century. They were privatised main roads and people were charged a toll to use them. The tolls went to maintain a good surface for wheeled traffic. The Portsmouth road was turnpiked in three sections. When the final section, from Kingston to Sheetbridge, was finished in 1749, the time for staging from London to Portsmouth was reduced to 9 hours.
From the 17th century, the Royal Mail had been carried by boys riding ponies, which could cope with rough roads. Because of the better surfaces on the turnpikes the mail was sent by coach from 1784.
The Guildford tollgate stood just south of the town from 1803 until the turnpike was wound up in 1870. The Arundel road was turnpiked in 1757, with a tollgate at Shalford Park. When the Farnham road over the Hogs’ Back was turnpiked there was a gate at the top of the Mount. However, the Mount was so steep that an extra pair of horses had to be kept at the Wheatsheaf at the bottom of the slope to help the coaches up. To avoid this problem, the present Farnham Road was built in about 1800 with a more gradual ascent up the north side of the ridge.
Many of the passengers on the Portsmouth Road were sailors. Flush with money after they had been paid off at Portsmouth, ordinary seamen would club together to hire a coach to London. They could often be seen yelling and waving flags as their dangerously-swaying vehicles clattered through the town. Having spent, or been robbed of all their money, the same sailors might be seen walking back to their next ship.
In the early 19th century, the fares were a guinea (£1.05) to travel inside the coach and 12/6d (2.5p) on the outside. The less wealthy, who did not mind a slower and less comfortable trip, could ride outside a van for 6/6d (32.5p), taking 16 hours, or even a stage wagon which took three days. This was a boom period for coaching. Some 28 different coach services passed through the town, carrying around two hundred passengers per day. Night coaches changed horses at Kirby's stables at the top of North Street.
After the coming of the railway coaching declined rapidly. Even before the line from Nine Elms reached Portsmouth in November 1849, trade fell off. In 1839, 18 coaches ran through Guildford. By 1842 mail coaches had ended and the post was being sent by rail. In 1849 the last coach services stopped running.
There was a sentimental revival of coaching from the 1860s, much as enthusiasts now preserve steam railways. Captain Hargreaves drove his Rocket between London and Portsmouth for a time, starting in 1875. Walter Schoolbred's New Times coach ran from Piccadilly to Guildford from 1879 until The Great War. These were really only pleasure trips, however, as coaches could never challenge the railway commercially.
Guildford had an unusually large number of inns to cater for all these travellers. John Taylor, The Water Poet, wrote of Guildford in 1636; "This towne hath very faire inns and good entertainment at the Tavernes, the Angell, the Crowne, the White Hart and the Lyon." It is curious that he did not mention the Three Tuns, which was already over a hundred years old in his time. It was finally demolished in 1818. There were, in fact, two Lions, the Red and the White, and in the heyday of coaching another inn, the George, flourished on the High Street.
Only the Angel, ironically one of the smallest, now remains. It was already known as Angel in 1526 and traces of Jacobean timbering survive behind a classic Regency frontage. The archway gives access to the paved yard where the crane to the hayloft above the stable can still be seen. All of the Guildford inns were re-fronted in the boom period of the early 19th century.
The Crown was first recorded in 1476 and was later used as the headquarters of the Whigs or Liberals. It did not survive the collapse of the coaching trade for long and became a shop in the 1850s. It is now the National Westminster Bank but a fibreglass replica of the old crown can still be seen above the present bank sign.
Faulkner's coach office at 64 High Street closed in 1840. The George, the youngest of the coaching inns stood between the Bull's Head and the Guildhall. It was another early casualty, closing in the 1840s.
The White Hart was the Conservative inn and survived the coaching era as a meeting place for county society, only to be demolished in 1905 to make way for Sainsbury's. The carved White Hart sign is now in the Museum.
The Red Lion, where Charles II and Samuel Pepys stayed, was the largest of all the Guildford inns. The stables for the coach horses were demolished in 1846 and it declined into a pub, becoming a shop after the First World War. By that time, Red Lion Gate had long been renamed Market Street.
The White Lion, home of the politically radical Gin and Water Club, lasted until 1956. It was then demolished and replaced by a branch of Woolworth’s. White Lion Walk now stands on the site. It is no coincidence that the old coaching inns were often replaced by large chain stores; Guildford was developing into the shopping centre it is today.
Guildford Museum
Castle Arch
Guildford
Surrey
GU1 3SX
Tel: 01483 444750
Email: museum@guildford.gov.uk