EDITOR'S NOTE
The heatwave breaks, and the festivals arrive. After Thursday's 37°C amber-warning peak, next week settles back to something you can actually stand in a field for — which is convenient, because Stoke Park hosts three festivals in three days. One big catch: the A3 northbound is shut all weekend.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Three festivals, one park — Stoke Park, Fri 21 – Sun 23 August
Stoke Park runs a triple-header: the Ibiza Orchestra Experience on Friday 21 (dance anthems with a live orchestra, plus Artful Dodger, Phats & Small and Ultrabeat), Guildford's Sausage and Cider Festival on Saturday 22 (headlined by Boyzlife, with Barrioke and Pat Sharp), and Summer in Nashville on Sunday 23 — the UK's biggest touring country festival, with two stages, line dancing, a rodeo bull and 500 free cowboy hats. Trains are running normally; the A3 northbound is not. Plan accordingly.
BEST FOR KIDS
Toto the Ninja Cat and the Great Snake Escape, Yvonne Arnaud main house, Thu 20 – Sun 23 August. A new family musical of Dermot O'Leary's best-selling book, full of puppetry and songs, for everyone over five. Free meet-and-greet with the cast after the Thursday show and Friday's 1.30pm performance. Book at yvonne-arnaud.co.uk →
NEW THIS WEEK
The Links Lounge has opened up at Slyfield — a virtual golf simulator lounge with GOLFZON bays, a bar, and 200 courses from Pebble Beach down. Open 8am–10pm daily, off-peak sessions from £30. Guildford's newest way to play 18 holes in your lunch hour.
HEADS UP
The A3 northbound closes from 9pm Friday 21 August to 6am Monday 24 August, Stoke Interchange to Dennis Interchange, with traffic diverted through the town centre — the same weekend as all three Stoke Park festivals. There's also a southbound overnight closure on Thursday 20. Come early, use the trains, or expect queues.
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Toto the Ninja Cat and the Great Snake Escape — Yvonne Arnaud, Thu 20–Sun 23 August. See Best for Kids above. Book →
The Princess Proms — G Live, Fri 21 August, 2pm. Themes from Frozen, Wicked, Moana, K-Pop Demon Hunters and more, sung live. Ages 3+, and selling fast. Tickets →
Eco Mission Day — The Friary Centre, Wed 19 August. Free drop-in eco-themed activities for the school-holiday crowd.
Musical Craft & Storytime — Guildford Museum, Fri 21 August. Crafts and stories in the castle's shadow.
Edo Pop: Japanese Prints — Watts Gallery, Artists' Village. Final fortnight — closes Sun 31 August.
Pop Up Play — Yvonne Arnaud River Room, Fridays. Free drop-in for pre-schoolers.
Adults · Date Night
Hayao Miyazaki's Dreams — Guildford Cathedral, Wed 19 August. Mystery Ensemble performs the music of Spirited Away, Totoro and more by candlelight in the cathedral. Quietly magical.
Crystal Tides — The Boileroom, Thu 20 August. Portsmouth indie on their debut-album tour, championed by Radio 1 and Radio X. Tickets →
Drink & Draw — The Boileroom, Tue 18 August. Sketching, socialising, no talent required.
Country by Candlelight — G Live, Sat 22 August. Country classics, candlelit — a warm-up (or wind-down) for Sunday's Nashville takeover.
Weekend Events
Ibiza Orchestra Experience — Stoke Park, Fri 21 August, from 6pm. Tickets →
Sausage and Cider Festival — Stoke Park, Sat 22 August. Tickets →
Summer in Nashville — Stoke Park, Sun 23 August, from noon. Tickets →
When Rivers Meet — The Boileroom, Sat 22 August. The chart-topping blues-rock duo bring their stripped-back Rhythm Rust & Static tour to Stoke Fields. Tickets →
Looking ahead: In The Night Garden Live lands at G Live on Thu 27 August, Jack Whitehall works through new material there on Fri 28, and the bank holiday weekend rounds off the school summer.
🏙️ What's New in Guildford
Virtual golf lands on Slyfield. The Links Lounge opened last month at 2 Thornberry Way (next to Ninja Warrior) — high-tech GOLFZON simulator bays, a bar, a pool table and 200 of the world's courses. Open seven days, 8am–10pm; off-peak sessions from £30. Early reviews call it "what Guildford has been crying out for".
The old NatWest on Worplesdon Road may finally get a future. Fresh plans have been validated to convert the bank building — empty since the branch closed in 2018 — into two commercial units and six homes. A previous nine-home scheme was refused and lost on appeal; this slimmed-down version is take two.
🚧 Useful Guildford Updates
Roads — the big A3 weekend is here. Flagged last week, now upon us: the A3 northbound closes from 9pm Friday 21 August to 6am Monday 24 August, Stoke Interchange to Dennis Interchange, for the Dennis Roundabout concrete repairs — with a 40mph limit southbound and traffic diverted through the town centre. There's a southbound overnight closure on Thursday 20, and further overnight closures on Monday 24 and Tuesday 25. The standing lane closure on the roundabout's west side runs until December. With three festivals at Stoke Park that same weekend, expect the town to be slow. Check the scheme page before travelling →
Trains — all clear. Unlike last weekend, no engineering work affects Guildford's lines from 17–23 August — the SWR calendar shows nothing closer than Berrylands. If you're festival-bound, the train is comfortably the better bet. The August bank holiday weekend that follows is the one to check nearer the time.
Planning. A busy validated list for the first week of August — 57 applications — but mostly small-scale. The NatWest conversion above was the stand-out. Also worth watching: listed building consent sought to knock an internal doorway through the party wall at 117–121 High Street — the sort of quiet application that usually means a tenant wants a bigger shop; another amendment filed on the North Street regeneration consent (the third piece of scheme paperwork in a month — it keeps moving); and a drainage sign-off at Weyside Urban Village. Strangest of the week: an application to turn a house and garden in Chilworth into a temporary film set. The decided list — 32 items — was almost entirely householder extensions and tree works.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 17 Aug: Headliners of Tomorrow, The Boileroom
Tue 18 Aug: Drink & Draw, The Boileroom · Summer Youth Party, G Live
Wed 19 Aug: Eco Mission Day, Friary Centre · Hayao Miyazaki's Dreams, Guildford Cathedral
Thu 20 Aug: Toto the Ninja Cat opens, Yvonne Arnaud · Memory Cinema, G Live · Crystal Tides, The Boileroom · A3 southbound overnight closure
Fri 21 Aug: The Princess Proms, G Live, 2pm · Ibiza Orchestra Experience, Stoke Park · A3 northbound closes 9pm until Monday 6am
Sat 22 Aug: Sausage and Cider Festival, Stoke Park · Country by Candlelight, G Live · When Rivers Meet, The Boileroom
Sun 23 Aug: Summer in Nashville, Stoke Park · Toto the Ninja Cat's final day
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
Lewis Carroll's grave, the Mount Cemetery. The man who wrote Alice in Wonderland is buried ten minutes' walk from the High Street, and most of the town has never visited. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died in January 1898 at The Chestnuts, his sisters' house below the castle, and was buried up the hill at the Mount Cemetery under his real name — a simple white cross, usually with a few pennies and the odd playing card left by pilgrims. The walk up The Mount is steep but short, the cemetery is free and open daily, and the view back over the town is one of Guildford's best. Take the long way down past the castle and you've done the whole Alice trail in an hour.
Lewis Carroll's grave, the Mount Cemetery © Wordland
WEATHER THIS WEEK
The heatwave bows out. After this week's 37°C amber-warning peak, the coverage week opens near-normal: 27°C on Monday with rain chances at 10% or under, 25°C Tuesday and 24°C Wednesday with the chance of a shower nudging 20%. Thursday onwards — including the Stoke Park festival weekend — is beyond reliable range at the time of writing; the regional outlook has frontal systems bringing some rain early in the week, then turning drier, with a risk of thunderstorms in the south later on. If you're standing in a field on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, check again before you pack.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
G Live's Memory Cinema returns on Thursday 20 August with a matinee of Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday — a relaxed, lights-up screening designed for people living with dementia and their carers, with a singalong strongly tolerated. It's one of the quieter, kinder things the venue does, and deserves a wider audience knowing it exists.
Know someone who'd enjoy this?
Published by Getbrief, a trading name of RJP Group Ltd