an old fountain
well; and I won a quart of sack of him." Afterwards, at supper, "my wife
and I did talk high, she against and I for Mrs. Pierce (that she was a
beauty) till we were both angry." Pepys's journeys to Portsmouth, where
his Admiralty business took him, seem generally to have been broken at
Guildford, which was the first stopping place after leaving "Fox Hall"
as he calls Vauxhall. The roads must have been pretty bad, for on one
occasion the coach lost its way for "three or four miles" about Cobham.
However, they ended as usual at the Red Lion, and "dined together, and
pretty merry" and so back to Fox Hall.

A gentler traveller through Guildford used to drive along the Hog's Back
in the early morning, breakfast at the Lion or the Angel, and reach
Sloane Street at half-past six or so in the evening, when she was glad
to get to bed early. That was when Jane Austen was writing at Chawton.
One of her letters, very typical of her in its regard for the pleasant
little minutiae of a day's business, describes a drive from Chawton up to
London. At Guildford she was "very lucky in my gloves--got them at the
first shop I went to, though I went into it rather because it was near
than because it looked like a shop, and gave only four shillings for
them; after which everybody at Chawton will be hoping and predicting
that they cannot be good for anything." She was then at work on _Emma_,
whom we meet again at Leatherhead.

Guildford High Street has kept its main features for centuries. But the
town has lost one of its chief buildings, which only survives in the
name of Friary Street, and in one or two other names, such as Walnut
Tree Close. This was the old Dominican Friary probably founded by Black
Friars in the first half of the thirteenth century. Not a stone of the
old Friary remains in its place, but the building saw in its time a good
deal of Guildford history. Prince Henry, the eldest son of Edward I and
Eleanor of Castile, died there of an illness which not even the skill of
the friars could abate, though they tried their utmost and sent
messengers riding to London for syrups and candies. The friars had a
good deal to do with royalty, and had many presents from the kings.
Edward I gave them oak trees for fuel and timber; Edward II gave them
eight shillings; Henry IV and his family lodged with them and gave them
forty shillings; Henry VII let them gather fallen wood in his park, but
never gave them a penny; Henry V