EDITOR'S NOTE
Week two of the Fringe, and the town has a second festival arriving on top of it. Heritage Open Days start on Friday and throw open the doors of places that normally charge, or normally don't open at all. Before any of that: if you catch a bus into town, it doesn't stop where it used to. Read the Heads Up before Monday morning.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Ten days of free history — Heritage Open Days from Friday 11 September
Heritage Open Days run from Friday 11 to Sunday 20 September across the borough, and the first weekend is the strong one. Watts Gallery – Artists' Village drops its admission charge on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 (10.30am–5pm). The Great Barn at Wanborough, a medieval barn the monks of Waverley Abbey put up in the 1380s and which is rarely open, does the same two days (10am–5pm). The Guildford Institute opens its library and brings out the treasures from Friday, and the Sime Gallery in Worplesdon gives a free talk and tour on Sunday at 2pm. Every one of them is free; the national theme this year is "Everyday Histories" — the butcher, the baker, the people who actually did the work. Guildford Castle's free day and the Rebecca Holton tour at Guildford House are the following Friday, so pace yourself.
BEST FOR KIDS
Craft & Flea Makers Market at Guildford Cathedral, Saturday 12 September, 11am–4pm. Ceramics, prints, candles, vintage tat of the good kind, all under Maufe's enormous roof, with the café open. £3 in, under-12s free — and the Cathedral's free Transformations exhibition (see Worth Knowing) is on in the same building. Combine with a free run round Watts Gallery on the way home. Tickets →
NEW THIS WEEK
Jigsaw has reopened on the High Street. The fashion chain's Guildford shop is now in a newly fitted space at 132–134 High Street — three changing rooms, one of them accessible, a seating area, click-and-collect and personal styling appointments. Open seven days: 10am–6pm Monday to Saturday, 11am–5pm Sunday. The listed-building consent for the new shopfront went through on 25 August, which is quick by Guildford standards.
HEADS UP
Your bus doesn't stop where it did. The Friary bus station rebuild started on Tuesday 1 September and the seven stands on Commercial Road have gone. Stands 3 to 15 inside the station stay, with services shuffled between them; the Merrow routes (8, 18 for Merrow, 23, 25, 300, 462, 463) now use temporary stops on North Street outside and opposite the library; the 46, 65, 18 for Onslow, 28, 91 and 625 pick up in the Onslow Street bus lane. Commercial Road is shut to everything except buses and construction traffic, and Leapale Road has gone two-way for good. Phase two, with more changes, is pencilled in for 26 October.
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Heritage Open Days at Watts Gallery — Compton, Sat 12 and Sun 13 September, 10.30am–5pm. Free entry to the whole Artists' Village, galleries and chapel included, on two days when it would normally charge.
The Great Barn, Wanborough — Sat 12 and Sun 13 September, 10am–5pm. Free. A 600-year-old monastic barn with a roof you'll spend ten minutes looking up at, and a good excuse for a walk on the Hog's Back afterwards.
Craft & Flea Makers Market — Guildford Cathedral, Sat 12 September, 11am–4pm. £3, under-12s free. Tickets →
Finds Identification Session — Guildford House Gallery, High Street, Sat 12 September, 10am–12pm. Free. Bring the odd-looking thing from the garden or the metal-detector bag and Surrey's Finds Liaison Officer, Simon Maslin, will tell you what it is. Children who have found a "Roman coin" should be prepared for the answer.
Little Notes taster sessions — Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, River Room, Tue 8 September. Music classes for babies and pre-schoolers (5 months to 4½ years) start their autumn term; taster places for the 14-month-to-2½ and 2½-to-4½ groups were still available at the time of writing. The under-14-months taster has sold out.
Guildford Walkfest — free all month. This week: Whitmoor Common with the Muddy Boots group on Mon 7 (10am, Queen Elizabeth Park Baptist Centre, Railton Road); a five-mile Ramblers loop up Holmbury Hill on Wed 9 (10.10am, Hurtwood car park 9, Felbury House, Shere); and two on Sun 13 — Broad Street Common and Wood Street from The Cricketers on Aldershot Road at 10am, and "How Railways Killed a Canal" along the Wey & Arun from the Trunley Heath lay-by at Shalford at 2.30pm (book with the Wey & Arun Canal Trust).
Polesden Lacey is shut Monday to Friday. The National Trust house near Bookham closes from Mon 7 to Fri 11 September while Surrey County Council digs up Dorking Road in the daytime. It reopens Sat 12 for Heritage Open Days. Don't drive over for a weekday picnic.
Adults · Date Night
My Royal Life: An Audience with Lucy Worsley — G Live, Mon 7 September. The historian on a lifetime of poking around palaces. From £48, and selling fast. Tickets →
One Man Poe (7.30pm) and Juliette Burton: Villain Era (9pm) — The Back Room of The Star Inn, Mon 7 September. £12 each. The Black Cat and The Raven done solo, then an hour of comedy about deciding to be the bad guy. Tickets →
Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons — Guildford Cathedral, Wed 9 September, 7.30pm. The Mystery Ensemble play Richter's minimalist rewrite of the piece you know from every lift, plus On the Nature of Daylight. Sixty minutes, no interval, doors 6.30pm, café-bar from 5.45pm. Parking is limited — arrive early or use the University overflow. Tickets →
Fin Taylor: The Pre-emptive Comeback Special — G Live, Thu 10 September. From £28.50. Tickets →
James Dowdswell: Beers of a Clown — Kerrera Craft Beer & Gin Bar, Thu 10 September, 7.30pm and 9pm. £12. A comedy show about beer, in a beer bar. The Fringe understands its audience. Tickets →
Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Experience — The Boileroom, Fri 11 September, doors 7.15pm. Fela Kuti's former keyboard player with his own band, standing only, support from Joe Garland's Mega Fusion. £19, £11 for under-25s. Promoted from last week's looking-ahead line, as promised. Tickets →
The Illegal Eagles — G Live, Fri 11 September. From £46.50, selling fast. You know exactly what you're getting.
Weekend Events
Heritage Open Days, first weekend — see the featured item above. Watts Gallery and the Great Barn both days; Sime Gallery talk Sun 13 at 2pm.
Laura Lexx: Yo-Yo — G Live, Sat 12 September. From £22.50, selling fast. Tickets → Showaddywaddy are in the building the same night, from £35.50, for a very different crowd.
Ghost Light (2.30pm), Mind Games with Mark Williams (7.30pm) and CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation (9pm) — The Back Room of The Star Inn, Sat 12 September. £12 each; the improvised murder mystery is the safe bet for a group. Tickets →
Brandon's Barn Dance — The Stoke Pub, Stoke Road, Sat 12 September, 7.30pm. Line dancing, two-stepping and a live band; beginners welcome, 18+ on a Saturday. £15. Tickets →
Antiques and Brocante Market — High Street, Sun 13 September, 10am–4pm. Free to wander; the third of the year's four.
Café de Swing — Clandon Wood, Sun 13 September, 2.30–4.30pm. Django-style gypsy jazz and a bit of bossa nova in a nature reserve, back after four sold-out Fringe afternoons. Bar on site, no picnics. £12. Tickets →
An Evening with Mike Joyce: My Life in The Smiths — The Boileroom, Sun 13 September. The drummer, in conversation. Tickets →
UkeJam — The Britannia, Millmead, Sun 13 September, 8pm. Free. Bring a ukulele or borrow the enthusiasm.
Looking ahead: The Other Side of Murder, with Rufus Hound and Susie Blake, opens at the Yvonne Arnaud on Tue 15 September; Phil Wang is at G Live and Norman Jay MBE at The Boileroom on Fri 18; Striking Comic Con lands at Surrey Sports Park and Martin Kemp at the Cathedral on Sat 19, the Fringe's closing night.
🏙️ What's New in Guildford
Jigsaw is back on the High Street in a new shop. The relocated store at 132–134 High Street opened this week with the autumn/winter collection in, three fitting rooms and a proper place to sit down. Its listed-building consent for a new shopfront and hanging sign was approved on 25 August, which tells you how tight the timetable was.
Guildford's register office is leaving Artington House. Ahead of the closure of the register office on Portsmouth Road, Surrey's registration service has struck a deal with Harbour Hotel on Alexandra Terrace: from Sunday 6 September couples can hold register-office ceremonies in the hotel's Suite 3 on Sundays and Mondays, with two to eighteen guests, and then stay for lunch. Bookings run to the end of March 2027 through Surrey Ceremonies. The first ceremonies are this weekend.
Foxenden Quarry: approved. The council's application to fill and make safe the 1940 air-raid trenches under the playground was approved on 27 August. Expect fencing to go up around the affected corner; the main play area stays open. We ran the history last week, so we won't again.
You have until 14 October to tell the council what the next Local Plan should say. The Scoping Consultation on a new Guildford Local Plan — the document that will decide where homes, jobs and roads go up to 2045 — opened on 2 September. It is the first of at least three rounds, and the borough council itself dissolves into the new West Surrey authority next April, so this is the round where the Guildford view gets recorded. The consultants' "grey belt" report that preceded it has already caused a stir. Search "Guildford Local Plan consultation" on guildford.gov.uk.
Westborough and Park Barn get their architects. Guildford Borough Council has appointed Levitt Bernstein, with WR-AP, ZCD Architects and Kanda Consulting, to lead the first phase of the Better Homes Programme for the two estates, where several blocks have already been emptied and demolished. Residents sat on the selection panel. The next few months are listening, not building.
Still to come: Halifax on the High Street closes on 24 September. Boux Avenue's Friary Centre shop reopened after a three-week refit on 28 August.
🚧 Useful Guildford Updates
Buses — the big one. Phase one of the Friary bus station rebuild is live. The seven Commercial Road stands are closed and Commercial Road itself is bus-and-works-only, with temporary stops on North Street by the library (stops H and J to get off, K and L to board) and in the Onslow Street bus lane (stops M and N). Inside the station, stands 3 to 15 remain: 3 for the Artington park-and-ride (70, 71, 72), 4 for the 24/32/42, 5 for the 6, 6 for the 34/35, 7 for the 53/63, 8 to 14 for the 2, 20, 1, 4, 5 and 478, 3 and 7, and 15 for the 479 and 715. The drop-off layby outside The Friary is closed. Leapale Road is now two-way permanently, so you can turn either way out of the car park. Phase two — more of North Street closed, a new northern entrance from Woodbridge Road — is due to start on 26 October, with the whole job running to late 2027. Stand-by-stand list →
Trains — both weekend days this time. On Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September buses replace trains between Ascot and Aldershot, so the Ascot–Guildford service via Aldershot starts and finishes at Aldershot both days, with a revised shuttle between Ash Vale and Aldershot. Guildford to Waterloo is unaffected, and there is nothing else on the SWR calendar touching Guildford until some late-evening Haslemere-area buses the following week. Nothing is currently published for the North Downs line to Redhill and Gatwick; a widely shared "two-week closure from Sunday 14 September" is last year's story. Check before you travel →
Roads — Dennis Roundabout is back. After a quiet fortnight, the A3 night closures for the Dennis Roundabout bridge repairs resumed on Thursday 3 September (northbound, Dennis to Stoke, 9pm–6am). National Highways' weekly closure report only runs to Monday 7, when the only A3 item is the Painshill entry slip near the M25 (10pm–5.30am); the coverage week's own list is published on Tuesday, and the scheme page hasn't been updated since 3 August. The permanent lane closure on the west side of Dennis Roundabout and the footpath diversion via Woodenbridge footbridge stay until December. If you drive the A3 late at night, check the day before, not the day of. Scheme page →
Planning — a proper read this week. Forty applications were validated and about sixty decided in the week beginning 24 August. Two worth knowing about. The Environment Agency has asked the council for a scoping opinion on the River Wey works through the town centre — the flood scheme, plus new fish passes at the Riff-Raff weir by St Catherine's and at Unstead (ref 26/S/00004). It is the formal first step before a full application, and it comes with eighteen documents of landscape plans, so this is real. And at 66 High Street someone wants advertisement consent for an illuminated fascia, a projecting sign and two illuminated LCD window screens — the classic sign of a tenant on the way in; no name yet. Among the decisions: 1, 3 and 5 York Road can become a single homeless accommodation centre with an on-site healthcare facility (approved 27 August), the Jigsaw shopfront at 132–134 High Street (approved 25 August), and Foxenden, above. Also validated: an industrial bakery at Midleton Enterprise Park wants to add a takeaway counter. Everything else was extensions, trees and dropped kerbs.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 7 Sep: Walkfest on Whitmoor Common, 10am · Lucy Worsley, G Live · One Man Poe (7.30pm) and Juliette Burton (9pm), The Star Inn · Polesden Lacey closed all week
Tue 8 Sep: Transformations exhibition opens at the Cathedral (free, to 19 Oct) · Little Notes tasters, Yvonne Arnaud · Jimmy Carr, G Live (sold out) · Sarah's War, Guildford Institute, 7pm
Wed 9 Sep: Walkfest up Holmbury Hill, 10.10am · Max Richter's Four Seasons, Cathedral, 7.30pm · Queen by Candlelight, G Live · The Doris Show, The Star Inn, 7.30pm
Thu 10 Sep: Cathedral Coffee Concert, 10.30am, free · Fin Taylor, G Live · James Dowdswell, Kerrera, 7.30pm and 9pm · Skinny Living, The Boileroom
Fri 11 Sep: Heritage Open Days begin · Guildford Institute library treasures · Dele Sosimi, The Boileroom, 7.15pm · The Illegal Eagles, G Live · Joey Page (7.30pm) and Ali Brice (9pm), The Star Inn
Sat 12 Sep: Watts Gallery and the Great Barn free, 10.30am / 10am · Craft & Flea, Cathedral, 11am · Finds ID, Guildford House, 10am · Laura Lexx and Showaddywaddy, G Live · Barn Dance, The Stoke, 7.30pm · Ascot–Aldershot rail buses
Sun 13 Sep: Antiques & Brocante Market, High Street, 10am · Walkfest at Broad Street Common (10am) and Shalford (2.30pm) · Sime Gallery talk, 2pm · Café de Swing, Clandon Wood, 2.30pm · Mike Joyce, The Boileroom · Ascot–Aldershot rail buses
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
Chilworth Gunpowder Mills. Four hundred years ago this year, in 1626, the East India Company started making gunpowder in the Tillingbourne valley three miles east of the town, and the works stayed in near-continuous use until 1920. What's left is a quarter-mile of ruins strung along the stream: roofless brick and concrete incorporating mills from the 1880s, millstones lying in the grass, sluices, a packhorse bridge, and the ghost of a tramway, all slowly being reclaimed by alder and ivy. It's a scheduled monument owned by the borough council, it's free, it's flat, and it's ten minutes' walk from Chilworth station or the small car park on Blacksmith Lane. Take the footpath east along the water and read the panels; then, if the legs are willing, climb St Martha's from the other side of the road and look back down on the whole valley. The council's Coffee Time Talk on the mills' 400th anniversary is at the Guildhall on 8 October, if you want the story from someone who lived on the estate.
Chilworth Gunpowder Mills © AndyScott, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
WEATHER THIS WEEK
The rain that arrives late on Sunday should be clearing Guildford on Monday morning, leaving Monday warm at 24°C with sunny spells, a 10% chance of a shower through the day rising to 20% in the evening, and a light south-westerly. Tuesday turns: 20°C at best, showers most likely between about 10am and 4pm (30–40%), and gusts approaching 30mph in the afternoon — not a day to leave the market stall unpegged. Wednesday is cooler and quieter at 18°C, mostly dry (10–20%), with a chilly 10°C start; the Holmbury Hill walk will want a layer.
From Thursday onwards — the Heritage Open Days weekend, the Craft & Flea, Café de Swing on the grass at Clandon Wood and the Sunday antiques market on the High Street — the forecast is beyond reliable range at the time of writing. Check again on Thursday before you commit the picnic blanket.
Forecast from the Met Office Guildford page, retrieved 7am Thursday 3 September (Met Office update 3.55am).
👀 WORTH KNOWING
There's a prison art show in the Cathedral. From Tuesday 8 September the nave hosts Transformations, an exhibition of work made by men at HMP Coldingley, the prison out past Bisley that most of Guildford drives past without noticing. The paintings and prints were made in the prison's art classes and are shown here for six weeks, free, daily until 6pm and until 7.30pm on Thursdays, running to 19 October. The Dean's line is that it is about dignity and the possibility of change; you can decide for yourself, and it costs nothing to look. A panel discussion follows on 12 October, during Prisons Week.
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