SWAN and Guildford residents gathered at members Barbara and Graeme Dundas’ Garden at the start of February to celebrate the Guildford Association’s 50th anniversary.

The association began under the name Guildford Community Development Council before being reborn as the Guildford Association, founded in 1975 to protect the town’s heritage, environment, and character.

Founding member Kim Douglas gave a speech and recalled the early meetings where differing opinions clashed between longtime residents who wanted progress in the form of infrastructure development and newcomers passionate about historical preservation.

“Past history tended to be just that, while for us newer arrivals past history was to be cherished and preserved,” Ms Douglas said.

“Meetings were often battlegrounds between older and newer factions.

“We’d come away drained and exhausted – but Guildford demanded our care and passion, and that’s what we gave.”

From the outset, members rallied against threats like a proposed regional rubbish tip on Kings Meadow Oval and the demolition of heritage structures.

Road and air traffic were also early concerns voiced by members according to Ms Douglas.

The planning, promotion and organisation of the rubbish tip meeting was the organisation’s first major campaign.

It was a signpost to the future in demonstrating how the coordinated actions of a group could achieve significant gains for the entire Guildford community.

Ms Douglas reminisced about her family’s fight to close the dangerous East Street intersection after witnessing tragic accidents in the area.

“This accident black spot had claimed several lives,” she said.

“For our safety, we installed upright iron t-bar girders across our front boundary, as had our neighbours.

“The posts were soon put to the test when a sheep truck crashed and rolled on our verge – just minutes after our young son had walked across it.

“While too late for our neighbour at (1 East Street), who moved out after the strain of too many years’ witness to deaths and accidents, years of Guildford Association campaigning succeeded and the closure mercifully went through.”

Over the decades, the Guildford Association has been involved in many preservation efforts such as retaining Guildford’s traditions of keeping livestock to protecting riverside amenities once enjoyed for swimming and family picnics.

In one campaign, the group hoped to save the Guildford stationmaster’s house from demolition, but the efforts ultimately fell short.

Ms Douglas said she deeply appreciated living in Guildford and to be a continuing member of the association.

“I am enduringly grateful that (I was brought) to Guildford,” she said.

“To this place of great trees, of river walks, of mellow bricks, of Stirling Square and St Matthews, Barkers Bridge and the Old Gaol and the Kings Meadows – and a history far beyond these.

“Fretted and harried by the traffic of modern life, still Guildford remains a precious and unique place.

“May our community continue to keep it so,” Mrs Douglas said.