Given the sheer size and nature of Guildford, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was a city. If you have made that mistake then you can rest assured that you are definitely not on your own. The question is, what is it that makes somewhere a town rather than a city? Has Guildford ever attempted to become a city and, if so, why didn’t it succeed in its bid? The answers are a little bit more complicated than you might have realised, with the most important thing being that Guildford is most definitely not a city as things stand.
The Difference Between a Town & a City
First things first, then, and before we look specifically at the case of Guildford it is worth having a look at what the difference is between a town and a city. In all honesty, the answer to that question is ‘not much’. In short, a village is the smallest of the main communities that exist in the United Kingdom, typically tending to be a small location in a rural area. Once it grows in size and begins to boast fixed boundaries and a local government, a village can find itself upgraded to become a town instead.
Village to Town
It is not impossible for a village to grow to become a town and a town to turn into a city. Liverpool, for example, was just a small village prior to becoming one of the most important port cities anywhere in the world. The word ‘town’ comes from the Old English, referring to a walled or fenced place. The modern word is more commonly associated with somewhere that boasts fixed boundaries as well as a local government. They sit in the middle of the scale, being larger than villages but smaller than cities.
Town to City
If a town wishes to become a city then it needs to be larger and more important than a town. The word ‘city’ comes from the French word that means ‘citizenry’, with the United Kingdom seeing a borough that has a Bishop’s seat being a city. In reality, there is no universally agreed definition of a city in terms of its size and makeup. It is thought that cities will have extended systems for the likes of housing, transportation, sanitation and communication, amongst other things, with the density of the area allowing for interaction between the likes of businesses and government organisations.
Guildford Is a Town
In spite of the fact that Guildford would very much appear to tick a lot of the boxes when it comes to the definition of somewhere as a city, it resolutely remains a town. The town itself can be traced back to the Roman occupation of Britain, with evidence of Roman dwellings found throughout the Borough. It was well-established as a town by the time the Saxons were in charge, whilst William the Conquerer even went so far as to order to construction of a castle in order to be able to control the local inhabitants of the area.
During the Mediaeval period and into the time of King Henry VIII, Guildford’s prospects began to dwindle. With a population of little over 1,000, it was equivalent to many other towns and when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries the town’s links to the wool trade began to decline. A new railway arrived in Guildford in 1845, which saw the town’s prospects improve somewhat, but it perhaps says quite a lot that there wasn’t a public library on offer until 1942. Across the decades that followed, more and more landmarks began to arrive in Guildford and increased the calls for it to become a city.
Applying to Become a City
In spite of the fact that many thought that Guildford would be well-placed to make such a bid, no such bid was made. One of the main reasons for this was that Guildford Borough Council and the Surrey Chamber of Commerce decided that the potential benefits were not enough to warrant the amount of money and effort that would be required to make such a bit. Guildford had already done so a decade earlier but to no avail. Although Guildford was odds-on favourite to win its city status, that was instead given to Brighton.
Cathedrals Don’t Matter
During the 1540s, Henry VIII created six cathedral towns and then gave all of them city status. This created an association in the minds of many between having a cathedral and being a city, resulting in countless people thinking that Guildford should be a city because it has a cathedral. In reality, many of the cities around the UK don’t have cathedrals, nor do they have a right to become one simply because of the size of the town’s population. St Davids in the South of Wales, for example, was made into a city in 1994 but only has a population of a little over 1,000.
The combination of the size of Guildford as well as the fact that it boasts a cathedral is part of the reason why it looked to gain city status once more in 2022. As part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, as many as 39 different places across both the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories made an application to become a city, with eight enjoying success. Those eight included Milton Keynes, Doncaster and Wrexham, but Guildford was once again left disappointed but ‘proud’ of its efforts.