Heritage Open Days

Anyone else took the opportunity to visit places that are normally closed to the public this weekend?

In our next village we visted this lovely Saxon Church and Medieval Barn and had an excellent home made lunch there:



Then we visited this Grade II listed roof garden, on the top of a Dept Store in the middle of Guildford. It's quite surreal tucked away up there with the water level up to the paraquet, and over 50 years old! "... primarily a sky garden,... the underlying idea has been to unite heaven and earth; the sensation is one of being poised between the two" Although my grandaughter thought it was just a great big paddling pool.


Finally we had a guided tour, around the town Castle and grounds:



Lewis Carroll lived near the castle, hence the "Alice Through the Looking Glass" Statue:

 

Thanks Clare, Robert & Penny. We were lucky it was such a lovely day.

 

Thanks for that Ziggy, we moved here in 1985 and by that time the roof garden had fallen into dis-repair and was closed down, so we knew nothing about it till it was refurbished and reopened in 2000. Apparently in its original form it had a waterfall going down the side of the building! I've searched for old photos of it as it's difficult to envisage what it looked like then.

 

It's a small world Ziggy, we live on the side of the Hogs Back about 1 mile west of St Catherines.

The barn is at Wanborough: http://www.guildford.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3336

On last year's heritage day we got up the top of Guildford Cathedral, theres great views from up there.

We had tickets to go around the Dennis Fire-engine factory on Saturday but had to give them away as I couldn't make it, our friends that went instead said that was a really interesting tour.

 

Great stories about Guildford Ziggy :lollol:. My son goes to the County school near the station, it was machine gunned by a lost geman bomber in the war, they think the bomber was looking for Dennises, the bullet holes are still visible on the front brickwork of the school entrance, quite big and all pointing upwards.

 

Hee hee Ziggy, did you wait in the bus shelter outside the school, its always packed with kids having a not so craft cigarette.

Yes the old engine sheds have long gone, replaced with a car park. I'll look out for the boundary plates when I next walk down into town.

Did you end up making hionest women with any of those girls from Guildford in the end?