Last month, I wrote about a visit we made to St. Catherine’s Hill, a church ruin with a spectacular view over Guildford. In the blog post, I mentioned a local legend about St. Catherine’s and it’s sister church, St. Martha’s, being built by two giantess sisters who “tossed a hammer back and forth between each hill as needed”. A few weeks later, we decided to go visit the church of the “other sister”.

 The blue dot is St. Catherine’s (last month’s visit), the red dot is St. Martha’s.

St. Martha’s is still an active parish church within the Church of England, although it is currently closed due to Covid. Despite being active, the church is inaccessible by car. There are actually two car parks, each a 10 minute walk (in opposite directions). It’s not a difficult hike, but I can’t envision many elderly parishioners walking up it every week for church. Perhaps they use golf carts or something on Sunday mornings.

The church as you approach from the west.

The existing church is relatively new, built circa 1850 to replace a crumbling 12th century building. We couldn’t see the inside, but the outside is gorgeous.

The real draw, however, is the view. St. Martha’s is actually (just) visible from my office window at the church.

Hard to see in this pic, but that clearing is the church.

From the top of the hill you can supposedly see into 8 counties, although I can’t find that reference now to back that up. I do know you can see all the way back to Godalming in the west/southwest and, on a clear day, they say you can see London to the northeast. It feels like you can see forever.

In other news, lockdown restrictions continue to ease on schedule in the U.K., so we’re already planning the places we’re going to see this Spring and Summer. Stay tuned for most pics and posts. Finally, here’s my favourite picture I took from the top of St. Martha’s Hill.