Guildford, New South Wales

Guildford is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Guildford is located 25 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Holroyd and the City of Parramatta. Guildford is part of the Greater Western Sydney region.HistoryGuildford was named in 1837, in honour of the Earl of Guildford.Guildford is the home of the first KFC in AustraliaAboriginal culturePrior to colonisation, the Dharug people lived in small groups across the Cumberland Plain, including in the area which is now the Woodville Ward. The Bidjigal clan lived around the area which is now Guildford.European settlementLieutenant Samuel North was granted 640 acres in this area in 1817 and named his property Guildford, as he had ties with the Earl of Guildford. A small hamlet developed in the area around Woodville Road and by 1870 a school had opened here and a church was built here in the 1880s. After the railway station opened in 1876, a new settlement developed around it and the former settlement became known as Old Guildford.Multicultural AustraliaGuildford is one of a small number of Sydney suburbs which houses the most significant portion of the Arabic-speaking diaspora in Australia. The first arrivals were from Lebanon in the 1970s following its civil war and since then numbers have grown to make Guildford one of Australia's true multicultural places, with many other resident nationalities and identities adding to the harmonious mix. The suburb has transformed in only 30 years into what is now a fast-growing and dynamic hub of Arab-Australian society, culture and food in Sydney.