Guildford is Surrey's county town, though so far shorn of its dignity that the County Council meets at Kingston, and much overgrown by Croydon, not to speak of the South London suburbs. There is no question as to its antiquity. It seems to have been a place of note in Saxon days; then, soon after the Conquest, a lordly castle was built here, that came to be visited by several of our Norman sovereigns. The town was so happy as not to figure much in history, and to this it may owe the preservation of so many old buildings. There is no southern county seat that looks its part better than Surrey's, even since in our day its time-honoured features have been much overlaid by new ones, while everywhere it wears an air of roominess and thrivingness not always associated with the picturesque. Being only thirty miles from London, reached by three, nay four railway lines, it has become a favourite place of residence for business men and of retreat for officers, whose houses go on spreading up the dry and airy slopes of the Downs, above the old town rooted in the hollow of the Wey. Hence steeply-mounting, the broad main thoroughfare well displays its points of gabled roofs, projecting oriel windows and quaint doorways, more than one of the old houses, such as No. 25 and the Angel Inn with its vaults, being themselves notable sights. "Shall we go see the relics of this town?" If so, nearly all of them lie along or about its unique High Street, up which let us stroll, beginning from the bridge in the dip below the railway station, which is on the other side of the river. Above the bridge stands up the tower of St. Nicholas, one of Guildford's three parish churches, [Illustration: A HAYFIELD, WONERSH.] which has been more than once rebuilt, but preserves the ancient Loseley Chapel, containing fine monuments of the More family. A little way up the High Street, to the right, in Quarry Street, will be found the old church of St. Mary's, partly built of chalk mixed with flint and rubble, showing many remarkable points of interest and controversy for archæologists, among them a bit claimed as Saxon, some grotesque corbels, and the vaulted roof of St. John's Chapel, ornamented with grim mediæval frescoes, which, like those in Chaldon Church, have become much obliterated, but it is now proposed to revive them. Their subject seems to be various marvels and horrors, mostly connected with legends of St. John; and they have been taken for the work of William of Florence, an artist employed by Henry III.