Godalming
Godalming /ˈɡɒdəlmɪŋ/ is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around 30 miles (49 km) southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers 3.74 sq mi (9.7 km2) and includes the settlements of Farncombe, Binscombe and Aaron's Hill. Much of the area lies on the strata of the Lower Greensand Group and Bargate stone was quarried locally until the Second World War.
Godalming
9.68 km2 (3.74 sq mi)
2,252/km2 (5,830/sq mi)
30 mi (49 km) NE
- Godalming
United Kingdom
Godalming
01483
The earliest evidence of human activity is from the Paleolithic and land above the Wey floodplain at Charterhouse was first settled in the middle Iron Age. The modern town is believed to have its origins in the 6th or early 7th centuries and its name is thought to derive from that of a Saxon landowner. Kersey, a woollen cloth, dyed blue, was produced at Godalming for much of the Middle Ages, but the industry declined in the early modern period. In the 17th century, the town began to specialise in the production of knitted textiles and in the manufacture of hosiery in particular.
Throughout its history, Godalming has benefitted from its location on the main route from London to Portsmouth Dockyard. Local transport links were improved from the early 18th century with the opening of the turnpike road through the town in 1749 and the construction of the Godalming Navigation in 1764. Expansion of the settlement began in the mid-19th century, stimulated by the opening of the first railway station in 1849 and the relocation of Charterhouse School from London in 1872. The town has a claim to be the first place in the world to have a combined public and private electricity supply.
Several buildings in the town centre date from the 16th and 17th centuries. The distinctive Pepperpot was built in 1814 to replace the medieval market house and to house the council chamber. Among the notable former residents of the civil parish were Jack Phillips, the senior wireless operator on the RMS Titanic, and the mountaineer George Mallory. James Oglethorpe, the founder of the Colony of Georgia, was born in Godalming in 1696 and the town maintains a friendship with the U.S. state and the cities of Savannah and Augusta in particular.
Toponymy[edit]
The oldest surviving record of Godalming is from a c. 1000 copy of the c. 880 – c. 885 will of Alfred the Great, in which the settlement appears as Godelmingum. The name is written as Godelminge in the Domesday Book of 1086, and later as Godelminges (c. 1150 – c. 1200), Godhelming (c. 1170 – c. 1230), Godalminges (c. 1220 – c. 1265) and Godalmyn (c. 1485 – c. 1625). The second part of the name is thought to derive from the Old English —ingas and means "people of" or "family of" and the first part may refer to an Anglo-Saxon individual called Godhelm.[3][note 1] Thomas William Shore (1840–1905) suggested that Godhelm may be of Gothic origin[5] and Robert Eugen Zachrisson (1880–1937) proposed that it may have been an early name for the River Ock or another local stream.[3] Residents of Godalming are sometimes called "Godhelmians".[6][7]
The first records of Binscombe and Busbridge are from the 13th century, when they appear as Budenscombe and Bursbrige respectively. Their names are thought to derive from individuals called Byden and Beohrtsige, names both found in Old English. Catteshall may mean "hill of the wild cat" or "hill belonging to a person called Catt".[3] Farncombe appears in Domesday Book as Fearnecombe and is thought to mean "valley of the ferns".[8] Frith Hill may derive from the Middle English frith, meaning "woodland".[9]
National and local government[edit]
UK parliament[edit]
The entirety of the Godalming Civil Parish is in the parliamentary constituency of South West Surrey and has been represented at Westminster since May 2005 by Conservative Jeremy Hunt.[113][114] Between 1984 and 2005, the seat was held by Virginia Bottomley, who was elevated to the House of Lords as Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone in the year she left the House of Commons.[114][115]
Parks and open spaces[edit]
Broadwater Park[edit]
The 29 ha (72-acre) Broadwater Park is a mixed-use recreation ground to the northeast of Farncombe. For much of its history, the area was owned by the More Molyneux family of Loseley House[310] and the first record of cricket being played there is from 1827.[311] The estate, including the cricket ground, was sold in 1836 to the timber merchant, George Marshall, for the site of Broadwater House. The property remained in the Marshall family until the early 20th century, when it was bought by George Edward Price, a director of the Canadian firm, Price Brothers Ltd. During the First World War, the house was used to accommodate Belgian refugees[310] and the lake was used as an ice rink by Canadian soldiers, who were billeted at Witley Camp.[103]
In 1936, the estate was purchased by Mr W. Hoptroff, a local builder, who in turn offered some of the land to the borough for use as a recreation area. In November of that year, an area of 1.8 ha (4.4 acres), including the cricket ground, were bought by P. C. Fletcher, the Mayor of Godalming, and presented to the town.[310] In December 1938, an area of 13.3 ha (33 acres) was designated a King George's Field.[312] In 2022, the park is owned by the borough council and includes areas of woodland and grassland, a multi-use games area, football pitches and tennis courts.[313]
Other open spaces[edit]
The Lammas Lands are a 31.8 ha (79-acre) area of floodplain on the north bank of the River Wey between the town centre and Farncombe. From medieval times until the early 19th century, the area was managed as a hay meadow and, once the grass had been cut around Lammas Day (1 August), local residents were permitted to graze their cattle until Candlemas (1 February) the following year. These rights of common were extinguished in with the 1808 Act of Inclosure, but at least two of the dole stones, which formerly denoted individual plots of land, survive.[69][82] Today the Lammas Lands are designated a Site of Nature Conservation Interest and are mostly owned by the borough council. A 1994 survey noted the presence of over 108 species of flowering plants, including black knapweed, meadow saxifrage, marsh marigold and water mint. Some 227 types of invertebrate were recorded in 2001, including populations of reed beetle on the banks of the Wey, whirligig beetle in Hell Ditch and click beetle in areas with taller grasses.[68][69]
Holloway Hill Recreation Ground, originally known as Whitehart Field, was purchased by the Godalming Recreation Club Company in 1896. It has been used as a cricket field since before 1883 and, in 1885, sports being played there include football, quoits and tennis.[263] During the First World War, the ground was dug up for allotments[104] and in 1921 the town council bought the land from the company.[314] Since June 2015, the 5.87 ha (14.5-acre) ground has been protected by the charity Fields in Trust under their Queen Elizabeth II Fields scheme.[315]