Tall tales and true: of Yorkshire moors and the byways of Surrey: Shades of Dickens

We are always shocked to see homeless men and women in England living wild with black plastic bags of possessions surrounding an unprotected doonah all laid out on the bare dirty cement in a doorway niche they occupy somewhere in a city. We see them even now, though these are not disastrous economic times. And we learned today that there are many places in Guildford for homeless men to stay. They don't really need to be in these doorways. Though many choose just that option over the other. They have their reasons.

Guildford has preserved a workhouse from the Victorian and Edwardian era and today we spent hours with a volunteer giving us a personal guided tour of the place. The main workhouse has been demolished, and smart project homes now encircle the green where it stood not so long ago. It actually evolved into a hospital before its demise, as did many of England's workhouses.

Off to one side of the original workhouse was sited a vagrant house, or a tramp house, for transients who called enroute to wherever they were bent on going, having no place for the night. This was built separate from the main workhouse for control. Tramps could cause chaos, and fights among them often broke out. To limit the effects of that, tramps were assigned a separate building. It is called the 'Casual Ward' in Guildford, though it is mostly referred to as 'the Spike'. We were able to view it as some of the locals argued it should be saved, and as it has some historical architectural features that are unique the locals won their plea, and that part of workhouse survives, allowing folk like us to call in and see what it once was like.

Back then, tramps needing a bed for the night would queue at a barred gate here in Guildford as evening fell. The gate into the complex opened at 6pm. Throughout the country the brick entrance near the gate to such tramp workhouses often held chalk graffiti illustrations drawn on the brick face by other tramps, leaving shorthand messages. The symbols on our wall read: A sit-down meal may be on offer. Or: Take care, the police might be called if you are disruptive. Or: Watch out, there is a vicious dog. Or: Money may be given here. Or: Food only. And so on. Messages from one tramp to another, like a voluntary Trip Advisor review of the day.

The tramps needing succour sat in a cold narrow building like a bus shelter inside the gate as they waited to be processed. One by one they would be called into the main building and sorted. Those in a problematic condition were placed into an isolation room, though someone with pneumonia might be placed in the same quarantine space as someone with a highly infectious disease, so cross contamination was often the end result and could be fatal. After they supplied their personal particulars to the Tramp Major they were then fed: typically the meal consisted of a chunk of dry bread and gruel, or a broth of some sort. Subsistence seems to have been the intent of such meals, certainly substance and nutrition were not. Shades of Dickens. They were not spoiled enough to want to return, that is certain.

Following their meal the tramps had to undergo a compulsory bath, often in grimy tepid water that others had used before them. Their clothes were removed and taken away to be steamed and fumigated for the evening. Though, again, they were placed into airing cupboards where all such clothes were placed, so the chances of avoiding cross infestations were virtually zero. They probably came out riddled with far more than they went in, come morning. They were given a nightgown and were walked along a bare corridor with lantern windows built high into the ceiling for light, at least while the sun shone, to a hall of cells that had no heating. The cells were vented to the outside, so cold air could gush in if they were unlucky. Very much like a prison. If they were paying a penny for the night they were assigned a cell to the right, which had a bare narrow wire-strung cot that flapped down from the wall, along with a blanket.

Tramps who paid were not required to work in the morning. If they were destitute, though, they entered a cell to the left, also supplied with a drop down cot and blanket, but a square metre 'ensuite' workroom was tacked to the back of their cell, and that was their workspace for next morning. With a large slide bolt on the outside of the door. There was no wandering the halls after lockup. Come morning, they then had to provide approximately 4 hours of work before they were free to leave 'the Spike' -- the name tramps gave to such workhouses throughout England. Which might refer to the sharp nails some had to use to spike and separate oakum for their night's accommodation. Or it might refer to the rows of lethal spikes built as deterrents high on the workhouse walls that some used to limit accessibility. With the same effect as barbed wire around prison walls.

In Guildford it was common to ask destitute tramps to break up chunks of local chalk and stone rubble into finer pieces for use as 'gravel' in roadbuilding throughout the district. So fine were the stone pieces required for this that the Guildford workhouse architect thought to install a special barred window for each worker tramp to use as a measure. The window allowed large stone chunks to be pushed up and in to the workspace at the bottom, and then once smashed to pieces, allowed the appropriately sized smaller chunks to filter back out through specially designed metal grid holes measured for the purpose. This window measure installation was found to be the only one of its kind in any workhouse in England. Such was its uniqueness that it saved the building from demolition. It allows those of us who are more fortunate to view the lives of those less fortunate. Downtown in Guildford the problem still remains: homeless men and women still sleep wild on brutally cold nights. We are a strange breed, I fear, that this issue has still not been satisfactorily resolved.