Stoke Park | |
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Stoke Park and Gardens | |
Location | Guildford, Surrey |
Coordinates | 51°14′45″N0°33′48″W / 51.245705°N 0.563288°W |
Area | 52 hectares (130 acres) [1] |
Created | 1925 |
Owned by | Guildford Borough Council [1] |
Administered by | Parks and Countryside Service [2] |
Awards | Green Flag award |
Public transit access | London Road (Guildford) railway station |
Stoke Park is a 52-hectare (130-acre) park on the edge of the town centre of Guildford, Surrey, England donated to Guildford by the Lord Onslow in 1925 with the express wish that it "remain for all time a lung of the town". [3] Between London Road and Parkway, two of the four arterial roads to the A3, Stoke Park is the largest park within the town signed area of Guildford. It is also a Green Flag award winning park. The park and its woodland have remained more or less intact since they were laid out in the 18th-century. Then, there was the manor house which owned slightly more land remaining from the manor of Stoke-next-Guildford, complete with walled garden and icehouse. [4]
To the west of the park is Guildford College. The other side of the college, away from the park, is St John's Church. To the south of the park is Guildford Community Church, Guildford High School and London Road (Guildford) railway station. Surrounding the park to the south and east is the A3100 road. This meets the A25 road, which runs along the north side of the park, in the northeast corner close to the Guildfordian Bisons RFC pitches. To the north of the A25 road is the Guildford Spectrum with which the park shares its facilities.
Stoke was originally a parish south of the River Wey. In 1894, it became part of Guildford, when the parish of Stoke was split into two, Stoke-within-Guildford and Stoke-next-Guildford. Before 1762, the site of Stoke Park was called the Paddocks, it was owned by a Mr Dyson who laid out its dimensions. In 1780, it was purchased by a Mr Aldesey. He bought it along with Stoke Mills. The road that later became the A320 Stoke Road/Woking Road was diverted in 1780 to the west end of St. John's Church in Stoke away from Stoke Park. [5] It runs north to south, to the west of the ornamental gardens and the model boating lake in the park. In 1879 Samuel Budgett bought 100 acres of the estate, along with the mansion for £35,000, from Lord Onslow. [6]
It was home for many years to the Old Guilfordians RFC before their merger with Guildford and Godalming RFC to form Guildford Rugby Club in 2003. Following this, the junior rugby section of the club stayed at Stoke Park under the name of Guildfordians Rugby. They were joined in 2002, by disaffected Old Guildfordians, who had gone to Guildford and Godalming, thus forming Stoke Park Bisons RFC. At the beginning of the 2008–09 Season the RFU allowed the club to be named Guildfordian Bisons RFC, thus forming a link between both the senior and junior sides.
The Guildford Crows Aussie Rules FC train at Stoke Park during the summer.
Stoke Park contains sports pitches, tennis courts, woodland areas, formal gardens, climbing frames, a water cascade, an outdoor ‘trim trail’, crazy golf course, children's play area with slides, a paddling and model boating pool, concrete skatepark [7] and other large expanses of grass.
Stoke Park used to be the home of the annual Surrey County Show held during the second bank holiday weekend in May. The show has not taken place since 2019 following its cancellation due to the pandemic. [8]
Stoke Park was the site of the annual music festival GuilFest, and it holds the annual Guildford Lions Firework Fiesta on 5 November every year. The event includes many fairground attractions and food stands and starts with a torch lit procession from Guildford High Street and ends with a 20-minute firework finale.
A 5 km run against the clock is organised by the group Parkrun most Saturday mornings. [9]
Surrey is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the west. The largest settlement is Woking.
Guildford is a town in west Surrey, England, around 27 mi (43 km) south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around 145,673 inhabitants in 2022. The name "Guildford" is thought to derive from a crossing of the River Wey, a tributary of the River Thames that flows through the town centre.
Wisley is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England between Cobham and Woking, in the Borough of Guildford. It is the home of the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley Garden. The River Wey runs through the village and Ockham and Wisley Commons form a large proportion of the parish on a high acid heathland, which is a rare soil type providing for its own types of habitat. It has a standard weather monitoring station, which has recorded some national record high temperatures.
Godalming is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around 30 miles (49 km) southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers 3.74 sq mi (9.7 km2) and includes the settlements of Farncombe, Binscombe and Aaron's Hill. Much of the area lies on the strata of the Lower Greensand Group and Bargate stone was quarried locally until the Second World War.
The A25 road is an east–west main road in the South-East of England. Its carries traffic east from Guildford, Surrey, eastward through Surrey and into mid-west Kent, to the town of Sevenoaks, and then on to Wrotham Heath where it connects with the A20.
Merrow is a suburb in the north-east of Guildford, in Surrey, England. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) from the town's centre, on the edge of the ridge of hills that forms the North Downs. Although now a relatively obscure suburb, the village can trace its origins back many hundreds of years. Merrow is separated from Burpham by the New Guildford Line, the second railway line between Guildford and London.
West Clandon is a village in Surrey, England within 1 mile of the A3. It is situated one mile north west of the much smaller separate village of East Clandon.
Westcott is a village in central Surrey, England, about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) west of the centre of Dorking. It is in the Mole Valley district and the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Pipp Brook, a tributary of the River Mole, runs to the north of the centre and the settlement is between Ranmore Common on the North Downs and Leith Hill on the Greensand Ridge.
Burpham is a suburb of Guildford, a town in Surrey, England with an historic village centre. It includes George Abbot School, a parade of small shops, and the nationally recognised Sutherland Memorial Park.
Artington is a village and civil parish in the borough of Guildford, Surrey, England. It covers the area from the southern edge of the built-up centre of Guildford and steep Guildown, the start of the Hog's Back and part of the North Downs AONB, to New Pond Farm by Godalming and the edge of Peasmarsh. It contains Loseley Park, a country estate with dairy, and the hamlet of Littleton.
Chilworth is a village in the Guildford borough of Surrey, England. It is located in the Tillingbourne valley, southeast of Guildford.
Guildford Rugby Club is a rugby union team that was formed in 2003 following the merger of the adult sections of Old Guildfordians RFC and Guildford & Godalming RFC. The club is based at Broadwater, which is in Farncombe, Surrey. They are currently competing in Regional 2 South East – the sixth tier of the English rugby union system.
Jacobs Well or Jacobswell is a small village in Surrey, England, of 20th century creation, with a population of 1,171. The village forms a northern outskirt of Guildford, in the civil parish of Worplesdon which can be considered the mother village of medieval date to the west. The Stoke Hill part of Stringers Common, Slyfield Industrial Estate and a Surrey County Council general waste transfer station to the south form the narrowest of its buffer zones to all sides, separating the Slyfield part of Guildford from the village.
The Surrey Cup is an annual rugby union knock-out club competition organized by the Surrey Rugby Football Union. The original cup competition was first played for back in 1890, the inaugural winners being Lennox, but was discontinued in 1909, having been held intermittently over 20 seasons, due to cup competitions being considerable 'undesirable'. The cup was reintroduced around 50 years later for the 1970–71 season, with the first winners of the modern competition being Guildford & Godalming. It is the most important rugby union cup competition in Surrey, ahead of the Surrey Trophy, Surrey Shield and Surrey Bowl.
The Surrey County Rugby Football Union is the union responsible for rugby union in the county of Surrey, England, and is one of the constituent bodies of the national Rugby Football Union having been formed in 1879.
Guildford bus station serves the town of Guildford, Surrey, England. Also known as the Friary bus station, it is located on the east side of the Friary Shopping Centre. The bus station was opened on 2 November 1980, replacing the former bus stations on the Farnham Road and Onslow Street.
Stoke next Guildford, or Stoke juxta Guildford, is a former civil parish in the town of Guildford, Surrey, England. In 1901 the parish had a population of 4462.
Charlton Park is a public park in Charlton, in south-east London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is situated east of Charlton village and Charlton House, and south of Charlton Park Road. Cemetery Lane bordering Charlton cemetery lies to the east, and the park is north of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.