What is coming Up in Volume Two?
“The Journey Begins”
One of the places that are referenced in the carvings at Royston is Guildford.
Now Guildford is not recognized as a place of any real historical interest. So why would I think that the cave is giving a reference to this some what small town.
Because the cave has a number of lines, which if I am correct, reference is given to Guildford.
The Quest looks for evidence. All places must have reference to Knights Templar; and their activities, also they must be on sacred druids sites, date back to the Neolithic, which includes earthworks, burial mounds, sacred places of worship, and a degree of mystery must surround the place.
Now does Guildford hold all of these?
To start the investigation we contact the resident historian from Guildford Museum.
We research the area. Studying the research of Historians, Archaeologists and other professionals, we investigate any evidence of lay lines, energy lines, the geographical layout of the land; and what is known about the pre-history of the town. These all play a major part of The Quest.
The local historian tells us that Guildford was first settled by the Saxons in the year 500 and there is no evidence that he knows of, which attaches it to the Knights Templar.
We discover several important indications that there is something not quite right about the known history of this town. This small town has three parish churches, servicing a population at the time of between 500 and 1000. There are six peculiar under-crofts, a castle and it had a palace.
From our own research, we found within a 4000 meter circle of Guildford town, that it does have ancient earthworks, a sacred spring, burial mounds, and a river which goes all the way to London, plus of course, an ancient path linking the town to Avebury and Stonehenge, called The Pilgrims Way.
The name Guildford comes from Gyldeforda, meaning golden ford.
In Saxon times, the town was important enough to have had its own ‘mint’.
Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age finds have been found on the Sand Hills of St Catherine's and St Martha's and Mesolithic flint axes have been found in this area.
There are also flint tools and waste flakes. There are also Bronze Age spears and axes which have been found in Guildford.
It is known that this area was controlled by the Celtic Atrebates tribe during the first and second centuries BC; and a gold Celtic coin was found in Guildford. The Atrebates were the first people to have put the heads of Kings on their coins.
Other historians also link Guildford with a possible Roman settlement.
The Atrebates were one of the most successful Celtic tribes and regularly traded with other tribes in Europe. Guildford was an important centre of commerce.
Historians believe there is a connection between the name Astolat and the Atrebates tribe.
Astolat is a legendary city of Great Britain named in Arthurian legends. It is the home of Elaine, "the fair maiden of Astolat", and of her father Sir Bernard and her brothers Lavaine and Tirre.
So there is evidence of an ancient community in or-round Guildford.
St Mary's Church in Quarry Street is said to be the oldest surviving building in Guildford. There is something very peculiar about this church.
First of all it's not just a church; it seems to have been constructed in the style of a cathedral. It has access passageways for processional use behind the altars; which are normally held inside cathedrals.
Also in the Church it has Three Monkey’s heads amongst other heads. The monkey heads are very relevant.
This church alone would have held most of the population in Guildford, but there are three churches in Guildford. Why so many?
Possibly because St Mary's Church was considered more as a private church for the King and Queen, this would make sense as to why it appears to be a small cathedral, where processions took place.
therefore it would have been large enough to hold friends, colleagues, and family of the King and Queen.
We look for evidence of processions being held, and for what purpose…
Guildford has a castle and a palace so it's not just a normal small town, it was owned by the King.
Although there are no documents about the early years of Guildford Castle, it is almost certain that it was built shortly after William the Conqueror’s invasion in 1066.
built castles in all the important towns throughout England.
So it's obvious Guildford was already an important place, otherwise the King would never have built a castle to defend it.
So if it was a town before 1066 it must have had a Druid's society, a large one at that, so it was already a town or trading post.
This society must have moved from St Martha's Hill to the lower ground as all settlements were built on high ground to reduce surprise attacks.
This is why the Neolithic site in Guildford is at St Martha's Hill, with its earthworks, circles and burial mound; and this is possibly why they built a church on the hill to ‘Christianize’ the Mount.
As society calmed down they would have slowly moved to the lower ground, just as they did in Royston.
So the first thing they would have done would have been to find the centre of the new town. The Druid priest would have created a Munden in the centre of the proposed new settlement. From this built outwards creating Guildford town. Again just as they did at Royston, Royston Cave was a Munden.
Guildford was also on an important route between London and the south coast and the West and not forgetting the North.
Some time in the early part of the 13th century a palace was built in the grounds of the castle, for use by the King and Queen.
So this was not an ordinarily castle, it was a palace defended by a castle. It even had rooms for the King’s daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, and for the Queen's Knights.
We investigate who those ‘Knights’ were.
What was the purpose of the tunnels, recently found under the castle?
In a room called the dungeon inside the castle there are carvings on the walls, eight spoked wheels, Saint Katherine? crucifixions, there is also St Christopher.
These carvings could have come straight out of Royston Cave.
We discover many curious links around Guildford to the Knights Templar, including Phillip De Harcourt, one of the Templar’s greatest benefactors, Richard De Harcourt, a Knights Templar, the De Montfort lineage, Bernard of Clairveux, who helped found the order, Templar graffiti in a local church and Templar coffin lids carved in stone.
It looks as though the history of Guildford may need to be re-written.
From Guildford we move to the next town referenced at Royston, Warwick, and conduct a similar survey, taking in the surrounding places of Templar importance, the Preceptory of Temple Balsall and Rothley Temple.
