 Guildford has Saxon roots and historians attribute its location to the existence of a gap in the North Downs where the River Wey was forded by the Harrow Way.By AD 978 it was home to an early English Royal Mint.The building of the Wey Navigation and the Basingstoke Canal in the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively, connected Guildford to a network of waterways that aided its prosperity.