Guildford United Reform Church, England / by Alastair Wiper

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guildford reform church-3

I've driven past the Guildford United Reform Church countless times in my youth; the church sits on Portsmouth Road, one of the main roads out of town, and was built in 1965. It moved from what was, by all accounts, a beautiful old 19th Century church that used to sit on North Street, right in the center of Guildford. It seems that North Street used to be quite a pretty little place, until, in the 60s (you've heard this one before) town planners decided to knock down of all the pretty stuff and build some really ugly stuff instead. And I don't mean the kind of 60s brutalist architecture that we are now starting to think is interesting, I mean really ugly stuff; well, lets see how we feel about it another 20 years, maybe we like it by then. Fortunately, the people behind the new church had a little more imagination - and while I'm pretty sure a lot of people will say that this church is a fine example of the ugly crap they built in the 60s, I have to say I quite like it. It looks a bit like one day it might just take off and fly into space. I also particularly like the name of the church's youth group: the Fellowship of United Reformed Youth (FURY) - I wouldn't mess with them.

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