Vagrants casual ward to Guildford Union Workhouse

The Vagrants casual ward, originally part of the Guildford Union Workhouse, was built in 1905 by architect E L Lunn. It was specifically designed as a ward for vagrants and has since been used as a store. The building underwent minor alterations in 1935 and again in the late 20th century.

Constructed from red brick, the ward features a tiled roof with four large cemented rooflights and four brick chimneystacks. It is a single-storey structure. The western part of the south front served as a day room, dining room, and venue for Sunday chapel services, characterized by six sash windows with four glazing bars in the upper sections and vertical bars in the lower sections, along with a lower section that includes two small windows and a door accessed by a fire escape. The gable end displays a vertical brick pattern, while the west end housed the cell block, which contains 18 small cell windows following a similar pattern to the gable end. A toilet block was added at the east end in 1935.

On the north elevation, four iron grills remain from an original thirteen, representing an extremely rare survival. Each working cell was divided into a sleeping cell and a working cell, connected by a wooden door. The iron grill could be opened from the outside, allowing stone to be dumped into the working cell for inmates to crush into smaller pieces, which could then be pushed through the grill into collection containers outside.

The interior maintains its original layout, featuring a central corridor lined with salt-glazed bricks in the lower part, wooden seats in the sleeping cells, and spyholes in the doors of the sleeping cells.