This white building is known as Centenary Hall in Chapel Street, but to those of us who attended Guildford School of Acting in the seventies and eighties it was "Scout Hall" comprised of two rehearsal/dance studios: "Scout Hall Up" and "Scout Hall Down", Ian Ricketts's office and the first year common room. In those days before assimilation by the University and all the venue trappings that went with that, it was one of the few multi-purpose buildings we had.
But I never saw it from this angle. You can't get round the back from the street and the houses on Quarry Street which back onto the back of Chapel Street are too big to be able to see around or over. Also as in most English towns, the roads are a bit squiggly and aren't as parallel as you might think. Back then, I often lay on the floor in Scout Hall Up doing breathing exercises and wondering what the outside looked like. Well yesterday I worked in a meeting room in one of the Quarry Street houses with this view and so now I know.
One thing that's odd is to work out where the floors were. The floor of "UP" was higher than the bottom of that upper arched window. And I don't remember what windows there were in "DOWN" - it was always much darker and that door that now leads to the fire escape..? It's all jumbled and of course there aren't that many photos from the time because we didn't all have cameras in our pockets.
It's just re-opened as a Greek restaurant. So I'm clearly going to have to do a ahem research trip to work out the dimensions and such. Just so I'm clear, y'know.
