EDITOR'S NOTE
The jazz festival goes out on a high, the arts festival takes over the town from Thursday, and the Book Festival opens on Saturday. The theatre pick is the long-running West End Twelve Angry Men at the Yvonne Arnaud. There's a family craft table at G Live from Thursday to Sunday, and a stamp-collecting art trail that ends in a free drink. The big news is that someone has finally bought House of Fraser. The practical things: the A3 northbound through town is shut overnight on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday morning looks properly wet. Details below.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Twelve Angry Men
Yvonne Arnaud, Tuesday 29 September to Saturday 3 October. Reginald Rose's jury-room classic, best known from the 1957 Henry Fonda film, comes back after record-breaking West End seasons. Twelve jurors, one hot room and a boy's life on the line, with one man who won't vote guilty. The Sunday Express said it "holds the audience in a vice-like grip". Evenings 7.30pm, matinees Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday at 2.30pm; Thursday's matinee is captioned. Ages 12+, 2hr 10 with interval. Limited advance tickets from £19, then from £36, concessions from £13. Tickets →
BEST FOR KIDS
Guildford Festival of the Arts, Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 October. The festival's second year turns the town centre into a four-day art trail, and plenty of it works for children. G Live has an Autumn Crafts station all four days: paint and decorate something, then take it home. Watts Gallery runs drop-in pottery at the Guildhall from Thursday to Saturday. Space Sparkles, an interactive performance, is at G Live on Saturday. Pick up an art trail card, collect stamps at the venues, and the grown-ups can swap it for a free drink at selected pubs.
NEW THIS WEEK
Someone has finally bought House of Fraser. Three years after it closed, the big double-fronted department store between the High Street and North Street has been sold to Moretons Investments. Moretons is a Brighton property company that already owns the Gate Boutique and Bensons for Beds buildings on the High Street. It reportedly paid about half the £11 million asking price. The buyers have met the council's planners but are not saying what they plan to do. Experience Guildford's hope is premium shops on the lower floors and leisure above.
HEADS UP
The A3 northbound through Guildford is closed on Monday and Tuesday nights. The carriageway between the Dennis roundabout and Stoke is shut from 9pm to 6am on Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 September, so expect late traffic through town. The A3 southbound at Wisley is also closed on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Details below.
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Autumn Crafts — G Live, Thu 1 to Sun 4 October. The festival's craft station for all ages: paint, decorate, take it home.
Pottery with Watts Gallery — Guildhall, High Street, Thu 1 to Sat 3 October. A relaxed drop-in clay session from the Compton gallery's team, in the middle of the High Street.
The Attack of the Sea Dogs with M.G. Leonard — Guildford Baptist Church, Sat 3 October, 5.30pm. One of the Book Festival's first events: the Beetle Boy author takes readers back to 1587 and on board Sir Francis Drake's fleet for her new adventure. Tickets →
Space Sparkles — G Live, Sat 3 October. An interactive performance, part of the Festival of the Arts. The same day's Fun for Little Ones: A Tribute to Ms Rachel is sold out.
Adults · Date Night
Twelve Angry Men — Yvonne Arnaud, Tue 29 September to Sat 3 October. The featured show above. Tickets →
Jazz Funk Fusion Fest — The Star, Quarry Street, Mon 28 September, 8pm. The Jazz & Soul Festival's last Monday, with the Masterlink Sessions.
Festival Jazz Jam — The Britannia, Millmead, Tue 29 September, 7.30pm. The festival's closing night is an open jam by the river: bring an instrument or just a pint.
Michael Starring Ben — G Live, Thu 1 October, from £26. The Michael Jackson tribute show. Tickets →
In Conversation with Gus Casely-Hayford — Yvonne Arnaud, Fri 2 October, 1pm. The director of the new V&A East, and former director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, talks culture and curating. It's the Festival of the Arts' headline talk, and £10 is a bargain. Tickets →
Disco for Grown Ups — G Live, Fri 2 October, from £24. A disco night of the old floor-fillers for a crowd that would rather not queue for a club. Tickets →
Also Friday: Tales of a Celebrity Snapper, a 90-minute illustrated talk from a royal and celebrity photographer who has covered 13 Royal Variety Performances (G Live, Festival of the Arts). The festival's Nicolas Meier World Group finale at The Stoke is sold out.
Weekend Events
High Clandon Estate Vineyard open day — East Clandon, Sat 3 October. Harvest-time open day with free entry to wander the vines, meadows and sculptures. Tours with tastings at 11.30am and 2.30pm need booking. Book a tour →
Guildford Festival of the Arts — town centre, Thu 1 to Sun 4 October. Exhibitions, workshops and talks at the Guildhall, G Live, the Guildford Institute, Art and Grind and more. Pick up the stamp card for the art trail.
Filkin's Drift — The Guildford Institute, Sat 3 October. An evening of folk in the Institute's small room, one of the festival's music events.
Finlay Christie: Champagne Casanova — G Live, Sat 3 October, from £22.50. Stand-up in the smaller room.
Plump DJs: 25 Years of a Plump Night Out — The Boileroom, Sat 3 October, 7pm. A three-hour set from the breakbeat duo, marking 25 years of their club nights. Tickets →
Drawing Music: Great Ladies of Jazz — Yvonne Arnaud, Sun 4 October, 2pm. The Sarah Jane Eveleigh Quintet sings Ella, Sarah Vaughan and Shirley Horn while artists draw the band live. It's a Guildford Jazz and Festival of the Arts co-production. £21. Tickets →
Hannah Wicklund — The Boileroom, Sun 4 October, 7pm. The South Carolina guitarist and singer, on a Sunday night.
Looking ahead: Emma Rice's Tristan & Yseult at the Arnaud 6–10 October; the Book Festival's big week, with Victoria Hislop on Thu 8; Flavours of Autumn at RHS Wisley 7–11 October; and no trains through Guildford on Sat 10 and Sun 11 October.
🏙️ What's New in Guildford
House of Fraser has a buyer. Moretons Investments, based in Brighton, has bought the former department store for what is understood to be about half its £11 million asking price. The building has been empty since September 2023. It is listed, and the lack of natural light in its middle floors makes it hard to convert, which is part of why it took so long to sell. An earlier plan for shops, medical space and senior living never went ahead, and Fenwick is said to have looked at the lower floors. Moretons has not said what it plans. The Guildford Vision Group called the sale "hugely significant" for the High Street.
The Electric Theatre is looking for a new operator. The borough has hired consultants Blue Horizon Ventures to test the market for running the Onslow Street venue. It will look at a cultural or "hybrid" model with community use and commercial activity, and also at a purely commercial or alternative use. A briefing for would-be operators is online on Wednesday 14 October, and expressions of interest close on 30 October. This is the next step after months of consultation on the venue's future.
The first residents move into Wisley Airfield this year. Taylor Wimpey says the first people will move into Stratford View, the first 459-home neighbourhood of the 1,730-home Wisley Acres scheme, before the end of 2026. Before that, it will open Three Leys Park, a 45-hectare public park with a visitor centre and café. Work started in May. A primary school, shops and healthcare are planned in later phases.
Still to come: Victoria's Secret at The Friary, still promised for "this autumn", with no date yet.
🚧 Useful Guildford Updates
Roads: two nights through town, and more at Wisley. The A3 northbound between the Dennis roundabout and Stoke is closed on Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 September, 9pm to 6am, which sends northbound traffic through town. At the Wisley end, the A3 southbound is closed between the junction's slip roads, 10pm to 5.30am, on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and the M25 clockwise between junctions 9 and 10 is shut on Tuesday night. On Friday night, 11pm to 5.30am, the link from the M25 anticlockwise onto the A3 northbound at Wisley is closed. The northbound Hindhead Tunnel closures finished on Saturday; the southbound ones start on 9 October. Closure report →
Trains: clear through Guildford all week. Nothing on the South Western Railway or GWR North Downs line touches Guildford from Monday to Sunday. If you're heading to the coast at the weekend, buses replace trains between Havant and Portsmouth Harbour on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October. Enjoy the quiet: the lines through Guildford itself close on the weekend of 10–11 October. Portsmouth works →
Buses: phase one continues, and phase two has a date. The Friary bus station refurbishment is still in phase one: the north end of Commercial Road is closed and some routes leave from temporary stops on Onslow Street and North Street. Phase two is due to start on Monday 26 October, subject to change. All buses will then enter through a new northern entrance, works move to the south end of Commercial Road, and the drop-off point outside The Friary will be suspended.
Planning: a quiet week, with one piece of history. Thirty-six applications were validated and forty-six decided in the week beginning 14 September. Nearly all were extensions, trees and conditions. The one worth knowing about: the National Trust has applied to build the replacement Māori meeting house at Clandon Park. It will take the place of Hinemihi, the 1881 house that sheltered villagers from the Tarawera eruption and stood in Clandon's grounds for more than a century. Her original carvings are going home to New Zealand under a 2019 agreement, and the new house will reuse some of her fabric. Elsewhere: an application to establish in principle that between one and nine homes could go at Three Acre Barn in Effingham, and two houses behind 70–72 Southway. Nothing of consequence was decided. Separately, Bewley Homes' 50-home plan for Hester's Yard in Wood Street Village is recommended for approval and due before councillors this week.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 28 Sep: Jazz Funk Fusion Fest, The Star, 8pm · A3 northbound Dennis–Stoke closed 9pm–6am
Tue 29 Sep: Twelve Angry Men opens, Yvonne Arnaud (to Sat) · Festival Jazz Jam, The Britannia, 7.30pm · Sing the Shows, G Live · Man/Woman/Chainsaw, The Boileroom · A3 northbound Dennis–Stoke closed again; A3 southbound at Wisley closed 10pm–5.30am
Wed 30 Sep: Wet morning · Warrior Soul, The Boileroom · A3 southbound at Wisley closed again overnight
Thu 1 Oct: Festival of the Arts opens (to Sun) · Autumn Crafts, G Live, and pottery, Guildhall, start · Twelve Angry Men captioned matinee, 2.30pm · Michael Starring Ben, G Live · Arts & Culture quiz, The Star Inn
Fri 2 Oct: Gus Casely-Hayford, Yvonne Arnaud, 1pm · Tales of a Celebrity Snapper and Disco for Grown Ups, G Live · Nicolas Meier, The Stoke (sold out) · M25 J10 link to A3 northbound closed 11pm–5.30am
Sat 3 Oct: Book Festival opens: State of the World Day, Baptist Church · High Clandon vineyard open day · Space Sparkles and Finlay Christie, G Live · M.G. Leonard, 5.30pm · Filkin's Drift, Guildford Institute · Plump DJs, The Boileroom · Twelve Angry Men closes · Havant–Portsmouth buses
Sun 4 Oct: Drawing Music, Yvonne Arnaud, 2pm · Last day of the Festival of the Arts · Hannah Wicklund, The Boileroom · Havant–Portsmouth buses
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
St Martha's-on-the-Hill. You can't drive to it, and that's the point. The little church sits alone on top of St Martha's Hill, 175 metres up between Guildford and Chilworth, on the Pilgrims' Way. The only way up is on foot, by a sandy track from the Chilworth side or along the North Downs Way from Newlands Corner. There has been a church here since the 12th century. The ruin was rebuilt in the 1840s, keeping the Norman arches, and it's one of only three churches in England dedicated to St Martha. The churchyard has two graves worth finding. One is a memorial to Yvonne Arnaud, whose ashes were scattered here; she's the actress the theatre on Millbrook is named after. The other is Bernard Freyberg VC, the New Zealander who won his Victoria Cross with the Royal West Surrey Regiment in 1916. His grave is in front of the south door. On a clear day you look across the Weald one way and back towards Newlands Corner the other. The churchyard is always open, but the church itself keeps shorter hours. Save it for the dry, settled weekend.
St Martha's-on-the-Hill © Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
WEATHER THIS WEEK
One hot day, one wet one, then a settled weekend. Monday is 20°C, hazy and mostly dry. Tuesday is the one: 25°C in Guildford (the Met Office says the south-east could reach 27°C), after a chance of showers before dawn, with an unusually warm night to follow. That makes it a good evening for the jazz jam by the river at the Britannia. Wednesday turns wet: rain is near-certain from early morning to midday (95% at 7am and 8am), clearing in the afternoon, with a high of 23°C. Thursday is 20°C with some morning showers, up to 40%.
Then it settles. Friday, Saturday and Sunday all stay dry (no more than a 10% chance of rain) at 20°C, 20°C and 19°C, with light winds. That's good news for the art trail, the High Clandon open day and a Sunday walk up St Martha's. Nights drop to about 10°C from Thursday.
Forecast from the Met Office Guildford page, retrieved late morning on Monday 28 September.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
Friary Passage has been brightened up. The narrow cut-through from the North Street end of Friary Street down to the town wharf by the river has had a deep clean, new lighting and, most noticeably, cheerful murals along its whole length. It cost £33,000: £24,000 of county council money allocated by local councillor Catherine Houston and £9,000 from a borough fund for Ukrainian refugee integration work. People using the passage told The Guildford Dragon they like the result. It isn't finished with paint either: from Thursday to Sunday, the Festival of the Arts is inviting passers-by to help paint a mural there.
Know someone who'd enjoy this?
Published by Getbrief, a trading name of RJP Group Ltd