Adventures in Guildford

I had to do my paperwork for my visa renewal Monday morning, but I got to spent the afternoon exploring Guildford. The town was founded almost 1500 years ago, so I knew there was some history to explore. I wasn't quite sure where to start, so I decided to head out to the tourism office, which was really helpful. I got a few maps and found one for a historical walking tour of town. The tour took most of the afternoon, and I got some amazing pictures. I won't show all of them (though they are up on our Yahoo site), but here are a few of my favorites.

This is a picture of the Great Tower, which is part of the old Guildford Castle. The Tower was built in 1130 by the Normans (though the castle was built much earlier). I guess it never was really used for the military purposes, but it was the primary prison of the region for some time.

This arch, which was built in 1256, served as the main entrance to the Guildford Castle.

Here are a few more pictures of the Castle Grounds.

This is St. Mary's Church, which is the only remaining building in Guildford that dates back to the Saxon times. It was build in about 1050 and had some really old looking gravestones outside. Unfortunately, the grounds were closed when I was there, so I couldn't walk through and take a closer look.

This is the Holy Trinity Church. I'm not sure when it was originally built, but I guess at some point in history the spire collapsed, so they rebuilt it. This is the rebuilt church, which was finished in 1761.

Across the street from the Church is The Hospital of the Blessed Trinity, which is commonly called Abbot's Hospital. It was founded in 1619 by George Abbot, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While it may look sunny in that picture, the weather quickly changed, and I was caught in a freak hail/snow storm. It was too funny, and I just had to take a picture!

After that I called it a day and high tailed it back to my hotel room to dry off and warm up!