Guildford High Street has kept its main features for centuries. But the
town has lost one of its chief buildings, which only survives in the
name of Friary Street, and in one or two other names, such as Walnut
Tree Close. This was the old Dominican Friary probably founded by Black
Friars in the first half of the thirteenth century. Not a stone of the
old Friary remains in its place, but the building saw in its time a good
deal of Guildford history. Prince Henry, the eldest son of Edward I and
Eleanor of Castile, died there of an illness which not even the skill of
the friars could abate, though they tried their utmost and sent
messengers riding to London for syrups and candies. The friars had a
good deal to do with royalty, and had many presents from the kings.
Edward I gave them oak trees for fuel and timber; Edward II gave them
eight shillings; Henry IV and his family lodged with them and gave them
forty shillings; Henry VII let them gather fallen wood in his park, but
never gave them a penny; Henry VIII gave them many presents, of which
the largest were two of five pounds, and his daughter, Princess Mary,
gave them seven shillings and sixpence. But the friary fell, of course,
at the Dissolution and after that, apparently, Henry used the building,
which he enlarged, for his own purposes when he came to Guildford to
hunt. Later, probably before the time of James I, the old friary
buildings were demolished and another house built which went with the
Guildford Park estate through several families. One of its owners was
Daniel Colwall, a founder of the Royal Society, who conferred on its
annals the dismal distinction of a suicide. He pistolled himself in an
armchair, and the chair is still shown, black with blood, in the
master's quarters of the Abbot's Hospital. Later still, the house was
used as cavalry barracks, and three years after Waterloo, when perhaps
barracks seemed less necessary than before, the buildings were pulled to
pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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