Guildford Synagogue

Bethel Chapel, The Bars, Guildford, is an independent reformed Baptist church located in the heart of the historic town of Guildford. The Church was established in 1879 and the present building opened in 1910.The congregation started in 1878 when a few people left the Old Baptist Chapel in Castle Street, dissatisfied with the liturgy there. They hired the basement hall in the Ward Street Halls to hold services in, and on 14 April 1879, a Church was formed on the basis of the Gospel Standard Articles of Faith.A few months later the Church obtained a piece of land in nearby Martyr Road where they erected a temporary chapel built of corrugated iron and known as 'the Tin Chapel'. The name 'Bethel' was given to the building. Although several men who preached at the Tin Chapel were asked to become pastor, none of them accepted the call and the ministry was carried on by visiting preachers.By the early years of the 20th century the church felt the need for a more permanent building. Land was purchased in The Bars, the next road north, where a new chapel was built in red brick with round-headed windows outlined in grey brick. The new Bethel was opened in June 1910, Mr. J.K. Popham of Brighton and Mr. Calcott of Coventry preached at the opening services. The old building was taken over by the Railway Mission.Due to the enclosed nature of the site most light enters the chapel through a large dormer window above the front door. The whole building has a pleasing arts-and-crafts feeling about it. This building, with schoolroom, hall, vestry and toilets in a sympathetic extension added in 1930, is still in use. The original furnishings, pulpit, pews and so on are all still in place. Recently the dormer window in the front of the chapel has been repaired. The first pastor of the Bethel was Jabez Wiltshire. Born into a Christian home at Studley in Wiltshire, he was brought into concern for his soul early in life. After conversion he was baptised at Zion Chapel in Trowbridge in April 1914 and began to preach in 1917. In 1925 Mr. Wiltshire accepted a call to the pastorate at Bethel, expressing a desire to remain in his post until death. He died on 12 June 1953, at the age of sixty-one. He left four children. There is a small memorial to Mr. Wiltshire in the chapel.The second pastor at Bethel, Mr. P. Buss, served from 1981 to 1985.On 1 January 2018 Mr James Taylor became the current pastor.

Guildford ( (listen)) is a town in west Surrey, England, around 27 mi (43 km) southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around 143,650 inhabitants in mid-2019 est.. The name "Guildford" is thought to derive from a crossing of the River Wey, a tributary of the River Thames that flows through the town centre. The earliest evidence of human activity in the area is from the Mesolithic and Guildford is mentioned in the will of Alfred the Great from c. 880. The exact location of the main Anglo-Saxon settlement is unclear and the current site of the modern town centre may not have been occupied until the early 11th century. Following the Norman Conquest, a motte-and-bailey castle was constructed, which was developed into a royal residence by Henry III. During the late Middle Ages, Guildford prospered as a result of the wool trade and the town was granted a charter of incorporation by Henry VII in 1488. The River Wey Navigation between Guildford and the Thames was opened in 1653, facilitating the transport of produce, building materials and manufactured items to new markets in London. The arrival of the railways in the 1840s attracted further investment and the town began to grow with the construction of its first new suburb at Charlotteville in the 1860s. The town became the centre of a new Anglican diocese in 1927 and the foundation stone of the cathedral was laid in 1936. Guildford became a university town in September 1966, when the University of Surrey was established by Royal Charter. Guildford is surrounded on three sides by the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which severely limits its potential for expansion to the east, west and south. Recent development has been focused to the north of the town in the direction of Woking. Guildford now officially forms the southwestern tip of the Greater London Built-up Area, as defined by the Office for National Statistics.

The Hospital of the Blessed Trinity, better known as Abbot's Hospital, is a Grade I listed Jacobean building and charity in Guildford.

The Royal Grammar School, Guildford (originally 'The Free School'), also known as the RGS, is a selective private day school for boys in Guildford, Surrey in England. The school dates its founding to the death of Robert Beckingham in 1509 who left provision in his will to 'make a free scole at the Towne of Guldford'; in 1512 a governing body was set up to form the school. The school moved to the present site in the upper High Street after the granting of a royal charter from King Edward VI in 1552. Around that time, its pupils were playing cricket and their activity was later documented as the earliest definite reference to the sport. The school's Old Building, constructed between 1557 and 1586, is the home of a rare example of a chained library. It was established on the death of John Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, in 1575. Although defined as a 'free' school, the first statutes of governance, approved in 1608, saw the introduction of school fees, at the rate of 4 shillings per annum, along with the school's first admissions test. During the late 19th century the school ran into financial difficulty, which nearly resulted in its closure. A number of rescue options were explored, including amalgamation with Archbishop Abbott's School. Funds were eventually raised, however, which allowed the school to remain open, although boarding was no longer offered.Fee paying continued until the school adopted voluntary controlled status under the Education Act 1944; thereafter tuition was free and the common entrance examination at 11 was introduced. Soon after, in 1958, the school expanded with the construction of the New Building in the grounds of Allen House, a building used for a number of years as a boarding house and later as classrooms. Allen House was later demolished in 1964 just after the completion of the New Building. During December 1962 the historic Old Building caught fire, damaging a large part of it, including the two oldest rooms in the school. The damage was so great the reconstruction took over two years. The school became independent and fee paying in 1977, when the parents and staff raised sufficient funds to purchase the school following concerns about the abolition of grammar school status with the introduction of comprehensive education.The school initially educated 30 of the 'poorest men's sons', though has since grown to have approximately 900 students, about 300 of whom are in the sixth form. The majority of pupils, approximately two thirds, enter at age 11 in the first form, a few (3-5 pupils) enter in the second form at the age of 12, with the remainder entering at 13 in the third form. Admissions are based on an entrance examination set by the school, and an interview. The school partakes in a number of sporting activities, and has enjoyed some success, including finishing within the top two in the Daily Mail Cup twice. The school maintains a grammar school ethos, and as such runs a number of outreach programmes for students from local maintained schools, for which it won the Independent School Award 2010 for Outstanding Community/ Public Benefit Initiative. The Headmaster is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.

Guildford House is a historic house at 155 High Street, Guildford, Surrey, England. Built in 1660, it is currently a municipal museum and art gallery.

Holy Trinity Church is an Anglican church in the centre of Guildford, England. A large, red brick building, it was built in the early 1760s on the site of a mediaeval church which collapsed in the mid-18th century. It is the only large Georgian church in Surrey, sporting detailed frescos of the Crucifixion surrounded by the Saints and the Ascended Lord in Heaven, as well as one of the largest unsupported ceilings in southern England. It is a Grade I listed building.From 1927, when the diocese of Guildford was created, until 1961, when the current cathedral was consecrated, it served as pro-cathedral. Today it forms part of the town centre parish of Holy Trinity and Saint Mary's.

Guildford Civic Hall was an arts and entertainment venue in Guildford, Surrey, England. Opened in 1962, it closed in January 2004, and has since been demolished. Many famous artists performed at the Guildford Civic Hall, including Eric Clapton and Dire Straits, and the King Crimson album Live in Guildford was recorded at the venue on November 13, 1972. By 2010, development was underway for a new £26 million replacement facility on the same site, which opened as G Live in September 2011.At the 1992 United Kingdom general election, the count for the Guildford constituency was held at the Civic hall.

The Guildford Guildhall is a Guildhall located on the High Street of the town of Guildford, Surrey. It is a Grade I listed building.

Tunsgate is a neoclassical style building in Guildford, Surrey, England. The structure, which was originally a corn exchange and now forms the entrance to a shopping centre, is a Grade II listed building.

G Live is an arts centre in Guildford, Surrey, England. The venue was officially opened by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent in February 2012.

London Road (Guildford) railway station is situated in the east of Guildford in Surrey, England, lying close to the suburbs of Merrow and Burpham. It is 28 miles 47 chains (46.0 km) down the line from London Waterloo. The station is managed by South Western Railway, who also provide all train services. It is situated on the New Guildford Line between Waterloo and Guildford via Cobham, although some trains operate via Epsom rather than Cobham. The parenthesised Guildford is to avoid confusing the station with the similarly named London Road (Brighton). The name was formally changed to London Road, Guildford from London Road in 1923 when operation of the line was taken over from the London and South Western Railway by the Southern Railway, which then ran all the railways in South East England.

The Undercroft at 72/74 High Street in Guildford in Surrey is a medieval undercroft or storage room. It has been described as one of the finest examples of its type in the country. Since 1976 it has been a Grade II* listed building and Scheduled Monument on the List of Historic England. Generally, a medieval undercroft was built with at least three vaulted bays depending on the wealth or storage needs of the owner. Built of stone and therefore fireproof, an undercroft would have been used for storing foodstuffs or liquids such as barrels of wine or items of value. When built under a house an undercroft and, more importantly its contents, could be watched at all times. While undercrofts are on occasion called 'cellars' they were not exclusively built completely below ground level; the fact of being built into the ground often resulted in their being preserved when the building above was no longer used or when another building was erected in its place. There are the remains of about another half a dozen medieval undercrofts in Guildford. Being constructed of masonry they were costly to build and only could have been afforded by rich merchants which reveals that Guildford was a wealthy town during the Middle Ages. The Undercroft at Guildford is late 13th-century in date and is believed to have belonged to the house of a merchant above it who dealt in wine or expensive cloths or silk. The Undercroft is three bays in length and measures about 30 feet long by 19 feet wide and 9 feet high (about 10m by 6m and 3m high) and has a rib vaulted ceiling supported by two round central columns or piers. The corbels on the walls are carved with grotesque faces and support the base of the arches. That near the steps shows the head of a woman wearing a wimple which was fashionable women's headwear in the late 13th-century. The Undercroft's ceiling is actually above street level which gives ample room for the doorway and the steps leading down from the High Street outside, such access suggesting the Undercroft was originally built as a shop. The doorway being positioned on the downhill side provided maximum headroom while on the room's uphill side a low window was located which provided some daylight. By the far corner in the uphill wall a narrow doorway can be found which led to a spiral staircase to the house above which supports the theory that the Undercroft was originally built as a shop. Of this timber framed structure above nothing now remains. The extant three-storey red brick building above the Undercroft dates to 1803. The Undercroft included a doorway in the south wall which was blocked and replaced sometime in the 19th-century.From the 14th-century the Undercroft was largely used for storage, but for much of the 20th-century it stood empty until 1989 when the blocked street entrance was reopened and the room renovated for use as an Information Centre for visitors to Guildford. The Information Centre has recently been relocated.The Undercroft is managed by the nearby Guildford Museum and is open on Wednesdays from May to September – 2pm to 4pm October to April and Saturdays from May to September – 12pm to 4pm. Admission is free. There are steps from the street level and there is no disabled access.