As I Walked Out is a poetic and intimate blog written by local resident Tom Burgess who after growing up in central Guildford has recently moved back to the area, and is living in Shalford. His blog describes his meanderings around Guildford, musing over the beauty and tranquillity that our beautiful town has to offer. The instalments will chart the changes of the seasons throughout this year. The blog title is a nod to a book written by British poet Laurie Lee called ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ which describes his epic journey after leaving the sanctuary of his little village in the Cotswolds.
Making my steady way up the steep side of the Mount my mind was inevitably on the top and the beautiful view of Guildford it would gladly submit. I was eager for one of the many benches dotted across the open hill, for it was a clear bright day and I was tired. Although entering November it felt to me that the sweet tides of summer were still in motion, in fact it was though I was clinging to her coat tails. Still, in the background a buzz of crickets kept time, not the wall of insect sound that belongs to high summer but there all the same. At the top I decided to defer gratification and on a whim I darted through the hedgerow and onto the road which runs up the Mounts shoulder. Before taking proper time to admire the view I was going to take a stroll through the Mount cemetery, a morbid thing to do on a sunny day perhaps but it was remarkably peaceful in the warm breeze. The Mount cemetery is the place of burial for Lewis Carroll, arguably Guildford’s most notable writer. He is among good company too, for example the socialist poet and gay rights activist Edward Carpenter is also buried on the same hill. I made my way to a bench on the north side overlooking Guildford for a shorter kind of rest.
I positioned myself opposite Guildford Cathedral, probably the most prominent landmark in a long list visible from the Mount. The Cathedral’s prominence is in part due to its position on Stag Hill, in fact that is not all it owes to the hill as the clay for its bricks is from the same hill, named so because it was a site where the Kings of England would hunt Stag. I prefer the Cathedral at night when it is illuminated and it’s square edges are softened, the angel particularly visible. Ironically it is not only the prayers of Guildford that are directed toward that angel (in a rhetorical sense) but also most of our conversations as her supporting pole houses mobile phone antennas for T-mobile and 3. At 49 metres it does make some sense, certainly the only way to get higher is on the Mount, and I don’t think Guildford needs anymore pylons protruding from such a beautiful spot.
The music of the town below percolated up to my vantage point. The faint noise of the A3 too reached my ears, though it was no hard feat to imagine the sea instead. The noise prompted me to raise my nose to try and smell the Hogs Back Brewery which is near Tongham and going from strength to strength. Instead though I was greeted with the smell of fresh meadowed grass, on balance a preferable smell to even good ale. Squinting into the distance I could make out the fringes of London and reflected that I was lucky to smell such things and survey such greenery.
I remained, enjoying my place of rest for some time. I was lulled by the busyness of Guildford and started to notice some of its rhythms. Trains cut through the houses and trees much like a model train track save for the expansive skies above, clouds loitering with intent now but sun all the same. I was enjoying being escorted by the changing seasons and rejoiced in observing the transformation of colour, of the very air. I was all at once anticipating the arrival of autumn and the smell of wood smoke. With that in mind I set off for Watts Gallery, I had time to drop down the back of the Mount and being one of the cosiest places for tea in the area it suited my new sense of the changing seasons down to a T.
Tom Burgess