anyone live in guildford?

[Tig]

I'm upping sticks to Guildford in a little over a month to take on a work opportunity.
thing is, I know very little about the place, having only visited twice.


just wondering if there are any guildforders here willing to share local knowledge / protips / general wisdom?



Paricularly anything along the lines of "don't rent on this street, it's built on an Umbrella corp research lab"

[Largo]

Have some family there and have always enjoyed visited over the years, nice red brick suburbia, a more relaxed feeling compared to big cities thanks to the near by downs (as in the hilly nice places to walk) and the river which is always nice to go for a stroll by.

Always found it a welcoming place myself, as a visitor

[Flabio]

It's currently under about a foot of snow mind.

[Malc]

I know Guildford town centre well, due to living in a village only about 10 minutes away. It's a very nice area, but there is one particular street near Guildford train station which is very bad. Can't remember the name of it i'm afraid, but i've heard of people who have been approached and attacked there, as well as seeing flowers laid by a lampost sometime last year, so godknows what happened there. But it is only that street it seems due to some low income families bringing up their kids there.

Don't let that put you off though, it's a very nice area, which you have a fairly big town with most of the shops you would want, as well as some good restaurants (Jamie Oliver has recently opened up one over here), then you've also got the countryside right next to the town where you can go walking; so there's a good range of lifestyles to experience round here.

[Finsbury Girl]

I'd stick east of the Wey mate if you're planning on living in Guildford itself - avoid near the station and uni side of town.

Toward Shalford is nice, Godalming, Shere, Bramley just out of town are good.

Good pubs in Chiddingfold & Hascombe.

Beautiful part of England - lived in Godalming for 5 years before I moved back to Aussieland.

[Tig]

Have some family there and have always enjoyed visited over the years, nice red brick suburbia, a more relaxed feeling compared to big cities thanks to the near by downs (as in the hilly nice places to walk) and the river which is always nice to go for a stroll by.

That's the impression I got on my visit.
Compared to the area I'm in now (SW London), Guildford town centre seems stunningly civilized. Barely a chav to be seen!

I'd stick east of the Wey mate if you're planning on living in Guildford itself - avoid near the station and uni side of town.

I'll be working right next to the station.... Was thinking that a flatshare/rental about a 10 minute walk from it would be perfect. (I'm car-less, and public transport is short on laughs generally)


Is this dodgy area around the station well worth avoiding?
I've only had two living experiences before- South London and Bournemouth (the centre of which is full of students getting wasted in clubs). I'm not yet sure where Guildford's student area registers on the spectrum of dodgyness.


anyway, thanks to all for the comments- input much appreciated

[averybluemonkey]

Is this dodgy area around the station well worth avoiding?

It's perfectly fine during the day but I'd be careful about the nightlife in that part of the town. Someone managed to drug my girlfriend and her mates there one night and they're vigilant about that kind of stuff. The rest of the town's allright though.

[Malc]

The part of town near the train station that is notorious at night I have highlighted in red. It's that particular road with all the roads to houses coming off of it that is known for lots of pikeys and rough gits living around there. (I just circled the university so you know where it is in relation to the train station).

Just avoid that area for living in, and avoid it at night. Apart from that, the rest of the town is wonderfull and a nice place to be.

[Tig]

That is *incredibly* helpful Malc
You might have just saved me from an unhappy year in pikey avenue.

Cheers!



edit: and thanks to all in this thread for the comments

[Adam Stone]

Ha! I've also been doing my research for Guildford, so this thread is an absolute life saver. That section you just lined out Malc is very useful as it's good to know areas to avoid when i'm wandering about. I'm currently trying to find the best gym to go to and have a few ideas yet feel the Unisports at the Uni may be the easiest to get to (I've got to walk from the station to a gym, and then to the gym to Lionhead Studios).

I've looked into Spirit Health (which is the closest I think to the Surrey Research Park) yet it is rather costly. On the other hand, 'The Gym' is very cheap, yet a little too out of the way... (plus their dumbbells only go up to 20-something KG, which is no good) Hmmm...

Anyone have any suggestions possibly? Sorry to hijack your thread Tig buddy! Congrats on your new job opportunity mate

[Flabio]

The chase I agree with, but I've never had any trouble on Guildford Park Road or Madrid Road myself, and I've lived in Guildford 8 years now. The area north of your red line between it and the uni is pretty dodgy, but only in comparison to the rest of the town. Compared to even the better areas of other places I've lived like Leamington and Coventry it's fine.

(Oh, and the flowers on the lampost were because someone got ran over on the crossing there a few years back)

And anyone that willingly goes into any of the clubs on Bridge Street needs their head examining, those are mainly full of people from the villages around the area coming into civilisation and diving into the nearest places to the station. All the bars further into the town centre are fine.

Adam: There's a gym at the travelodge up near the Ladymead retail park that a few LH people use which would be on your walk to work if you decided to live north of the A3.

[Tig]

Anyone have any suggestions possibly? Sorry to hijack your thread Tig buddy! Congrats on your new job opportunity mate

hah no worries, I'm glad someone else found a use for the thread. cheers!


But...

I've got to walk from the station to a gym, and then to the gym to Lionhead Studios.

you can't just drop something like that in without explaining.
Are you starting work at Lionhead? If so, good luck, I hope it goes well for you.


My dealings in Guildford are gaming-related too - it's a new company working with Sony - so my question isn't 100% nosyness. It's also business!
Sort of.

Actually, as I'm new to the industry I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who works in gaming, particularly if they're in the area.

[Flabio]

Go into the Drummond Arms on a Friday night. Every other person there will be a gamedev.

[Tig]

blimey.
I knew there were a lot of game devs in the area- but I didn't know they were in danger of overrunning the population.

I'll keep an eye open for this Drummond Arms then. cheers Flabio

[Flabio]

It's the nearest (decent) pub to EA, Criterion and Media Molecule.