EDITOR'S NOTE
Summer closes on Monday and the town doesn't get long to feel sorry for itself. Bank holiday Monday, Surrey schools back on Tuesday, and by Friday Guildford's own festival has taken over the pubs, the Guildhall and the High Street for a fortnight. It's the best week of the year for people who like their entertainment cheap, local and slightly unhinged.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
The Fringe is back — from Friday 4 September
Guildford Fringe Festival runs from Friday 4 to Saturday 19 September — its thirteenth year, 55 shows across a dozen venues, most tickets £12 and a good number free. The Back Room of The Star Inn is the hub again, with comedy, improv, cabaret and theatre most nights. Two free ones land inside this week: Rock Choir Day on the High Street on Saturday, and Opera on the Balcony at the Guildhall on Sunday evening. The rest of the programme runs into the week after, so book now rather than discovering it in a fortnight. Programme and tickets →
BEST FOR KIDS
The Wow Bubble Show For Kids at Clandon Wood Nature Reserve, Saturday 5 September — two performances, 11.30am and 1.30pm, about fifty minutes each. Giant bubbles, small children, an outdoor nature reserve to run around in afterwards. From £10, and the earlier slot is the calmer one. Tickets →
NEW THIS WEEK
Guildford Walkfest starts on Tuesday. Twenty-one years old and still entirely free, it fills September with guided walks — history, birds, canals, commons — led by the Surrey Hills Society, Guildford Ramblers, the Town Guides and half a dozen local groups. The official launch is Tuesday 1 September at 10am from Mandira's Kitchen at Silent Pool, Albury, with refreshments and a two-hour walk round Albury and Shere. Some need booking, most don't.
HEADS UP
Part of Foxenden Quarry playground is about to close. The council has applied to fill and stabilise the 1940 air-raid trenches that sit under a cordoned-off corner of the park — the floor has failed and cracks are appearing. Planning officers recommended approval and the committee was due to decide this week. If it went through, secure fencing goes up and a section of the playground shuts while the work is done. The main play area stays open.
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Rock Choir Day — Guildford High Street, Sat 5 September, 10.30am–2.30pm. Free, outdoors, and loud in the best way. Part of the Fringe.
The Wow Bubble Show For Kids — Clandon Wood Nature Reserve, Sat 5 September, 11.30am and 1.30pm. From £10. Tickets →
Drag Story Time With That Girl — Waterstones, Sat 5 September, 12pm and 2pm. £5, and it books out. Tickets →
Guildford Walkfest — free walks all month. Two inside this week: a flat ramble round Send on Wed 2 September (10am, Send Evangelical Church, no booking) and Riverside Nature Reserve on Sun 6 September (10am), which takes in one of the largest intact Second World War "dragon's teeth" tank defence lines in the country, behind the Spectrum. Book the Sunday one through the Surrey Hills Society.
Summer at Watts — Watts Gallery, Artists' Village. Monday 31 August is the last day of the holiday programme; the Beyond Strawberry Thief exhibition carries on into September.
Adults · Date Night
Ricky Gervais: Legend — G Live, Tue 1 and Wed 2 September, 7.30pm. The new show, two nights, 16+, on its way to a Netflix special. Tickets →
Starsailor — The Boileroom, Wed 2 September. Twenty-five years on from Love Is Here and their first ever Guildford show, in a 300-capacity room. Tickets →
Vernon Kay: Dance Sounds of the 90s — G Live, Fri 4 September, 7.30pm. Standing, 18+, exactly what it says on the tin. Tickets →
Adam Flood: Life and Death of the Party — The Back Room of The Star Inn, Fri 4 September, 9pm. £12. Tickets →
Adult Panto [Unscripted] — The Star Inn, Sat 5 September, 7.30pm, £12; Josh Baulf follows at 9pm, also £12. Two for one night out, and the bar is downstairs. Tickets →
Weekend Events
The Mantecas — Guildford Castle Grounds, Sat 5 September. Gates 4pm, music 5–7pm. An eight-piece London salsa and boogaloo band on the grass inside the castle walls, led by Cuban flautist Ludys Hernandez. Bring a rug and a picnic; there's a bar, and Mandira's Kitchen are doing a pre-order platter. £22, £10 for students, accompanied under-18s free, and all proceeds go to Guildford Philanthropy. Uncovered, and it goes ahead in all weathers. Tickets →
The Archers: Live at 75 — G Live, Sat 5 September, 8pm. Timothy Bentinck, Charlotte Martin, Ben Norris and Annabelle Dowler doing Ambridge on stage, hosted by Angela Barnes, with the show's live sound-effects specialist making the mud noises in front of you. From £45.25, 14+. Tickets →
Norwood Wind Ensemble — Castle Grounds bandstand, Sun 6 September, 2–4pm. Free, and the last bandstand concert of the season. Steep paths and steps to get up there.
Opera on the Balcony — The Guildhall, High Street, Sun 6 September, 6–8.30pm. Free, outdoors, and one of the Fringe's better ideas.
Lady Bracknell's Confinement (2.30pm) and The Mudlarkers (5pm) — The Star Inn, Sun 6 September. £12 each. Tickets →
M60 and cases — The Boileroom, Sun 6 September. Tickets →
Looking ahead: Jimmy Carr is at G Live on Tue 8 September, Max Richter's recomposed Four Seasons is at the Cathedral on Wed 9, and Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Experience plays The Boileroom on Fri 11 September.
🏙️ What's New in Guildford
The council wants to fill in a piece of the town's war. In 1939–40, trenches were dug along the edge of Foxenden Quarry, lined with concrete, and fitted out to shelter 690 people; Sandfield School children were given permission to use them. At ten past midnight on 29 September 1940 a bomb landed on them, wrecking three bays and blowing chalk dust across the bowling green at Allen House. What's left now sits beneath the playground, the floor has failed, and Guildford Borough Council has applied to fill the void with compacted stone. Officers called the work "minor in scale" and recommended approval. It is not the deep Foxenden Tunnel shelter, which is a separate and much larger thing.
The council's vans are going electric. Guildford Borough Council has signed off a replacement programme for its ageing fleet, with most vans moving to electric and alternative fuels planned for the larger vehicles — the refuse trucks included. The current fleet has been running well past its useful life for years, so this is less a green gesture than an overdue invoice.
No new openings or closures to report. A genuinely quiet week on the High Street: nothing confirmed either way since Popeyes finally opened on North Street. The Halifax branch still closes on 24 September.
🚧 Useful Guildford Updates
Trains — Sunday is the day to check. On Sunday 6 September two separate closures land either side of Guildford. The line between Petersfield and Portsmouth shuts all day: Waterloo to Portsmouth services via Guildford will terminate at Petersfield, with buses on to Portsmouth Harbour. Separately, the lines around Ascot close all day, so Ascot to Guildford services via Aldershot will start from Aldershot, with buses covering Ascot to Aldershot, and Waterloo to Reading trains terminating at Staines. Guildford to Waterloo itself is unaffected. Late-evening services in the Winchester area are also altered or bus-replaced from Monday 31 August to Thursday 3 September. Check before you travel →
Roads — a rare clear week. As of Thursday, National Highways has published nothing new for the A3 at Guildford in the coming week; its most recent schedule, issued on 3 August, ran only as far as 25 August. The 24/7 lane closure on the west side of Dennis Roundabout stays put, as does the footpath closure there, with pedestrians diverted via the Woodenbridge footbridge — both until December. The Dennis Roundabout job has produced overnight and weekend closures at fairly short notice all summer, so if you're driving the A3 late at night, look at the scheme page before you set off rather than after. Scheme page →
Planning. The one to know about this week is the council's own: the Foxenden Quarry air-raid trench works, recommended for approval by officers and due before the planning committee. Full weekly list next Friday.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 31 Aug: Summer bank holiday · last day of Summer at Watts, Watts Gallery
Tue 1 Sep: Surrey schools go back · Walkfest launch, Silent Pool, 10am · Ricky Gervais, G Live, 7.30pm
Wed 2 Sep: Walkfest ramble at Send, 10am · Ricky Gervais, G Live, 7.30pm · Starsailor, The Boileroom
Thu 3 Sep: Guildford Jazz — Steve Waterman Octet plays Miles Davis, Guildford Pavilion (sold out)
Fri 4 Sep: Guildford Fringe opens · Vernon Kay, G Live, 7.30pm · Adam Flood, The Star Inn, 9pm · Walkfest health walk, Whitmoor Common, 11am
Sat 5 Sep: Rock Choir Day, High Street, 10.30am · Wow Bubble Show, Clandon Wood · Drag Story Time, Waterstones · The Mantecas, Castle Grounds, 5pm · The Archers Live at 75, G Live, 8pm
Sun 6 Sep: Walkfest at Riverside Nature Reserve, 10am · Norwood Wind Ensemble, bandstand, 2pm · Opera on the Balcony, The Guildhall, 6pm · rail closures at Petersfield and Ascot
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
The Guildford Institute, Ward Street. Two minutes off the top of the High Street, behind a red-brick Victorian frontage most people have walked past a thousand times without looking up. It has been there since 1834 — founded as a mechanics' institute to give working people somewhere to read and learn — and it is still doing exactly that. Inside there's a members' library of some 12,000 books, an archive, a hall, and a café that anyone can walk into for coffee and a decent slice of cake without joining anything. The programme is the real draw: talks, courses, language classes and workshops running most weekdays, with the new October-to-March brochure just out and more than a hundred things on it. It's also a Fringe venue this September. Go in for the cake, come out having signed up for Latin.
The Guildford Institute © The Guildford Institute
WEATHER THIS WEEK
The bank holiday and the first day back are the two we can actually call, and both look fine. Monday reaches 21°C with sunny intervals, a 10–20% chance of a shower through the middle of the day and next to nothing by evening — light winds, and a cool night down to 13°C. Tuesday is a shade warmer at 22°C, again sunny intervals, again 10–20% for rain. Cold starts both mornings at 14–15°C, so school uniforms need a jumper on top even if the afternoon doesn't.
From Wednesday onwards — which is to say the Fringe's opening weekend, the Mantecas on the castle grass and the Sunday bandstand — the forecast is beyond reliable range at the time of writing. Check again on Thursday before you commit to a picnic. The Mantecas goes ahead in all weathers regardless, so bring the umbrella either way.
Forecast from the Met Office Guildford page, retrieved 4am Thursday 27 August.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
Mount Alvernia has been looking after Guildford for ninety years. The hospital on Harvey Road marked more than nine decades of care this month, with a plaque unveiled by Guildford's MP Zöe Franklin alongside staff, doctors and invited guests. It was founded by the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood in the 1930s, when the town was a fraction of its current size, and it has been quietly patching up locals ever since — long enough that a fair number of readers will have been born there, and a fair number of their parents too. Ninety years is a long time for anything in Guildford that isn't made of stone.
Know someone who'd enjoy this?
Published by Getbrief, a trading name of RJP Group Ltd