Walk 14 : Gomshall to Guildford

Gomshall Station is where it is because, in the 1840s, the site for a railway station was decided on a given day by whichever shortlisted spot had the greatest number of people waiting. The publican at the Black Horse, Gomshall, provided free beer for those willing to wait at his site, as he wanted the station to be at Gomshall.

Gomshall is detailed in the Domesday Book 1086) as having 'land for 20 ploughs, 30 villagers, 8 smallholders with 18 ploughs, 6 slaves'. Of Shere, it reports: 'Queen Edith held it. Now it does not pay tax - 19 villagers and 6 smallholders with 12 ploughs. A church. 6 slaves.' By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had grown into a small township of perhaps 40 houses (most of which remain today), housing blacksmiths, wheelwrights, weavers and tailors.

St James' Church, Shere, was built in 1190 (its lychgate was designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens). It is a rare example of a church in the Early English Transitional Style (with the round Norman arches giving way to pointed ones). The nave pews have numbers - at one time people paid rent to the church for them.

In 1329, anchoress Christine Carpenter was enclosed in a cell on the north wall of the church (receiving food through a grating on the outside wall) for three years. She then returned to the world before petitioning to be re-enclosed. The bishop consented: 'The said Christine shall be thrust back into the said enclosure that she may learn how nefarious was her committed sin.'

The Alms Chest in the church dates from about 1200 and was used to collect money for the crusades fought in the Holy Land.

Guildford Castle, with its impregnable Norman keep, was granted by James I to the Mayor of Guildford for £5 3s 10d.