[1] The church stands on a "dramatic hillside site"[3] on the corner of Croft Road just off Flambard Way close to the centre of the town.

Although originally present from ancient times, since the 1500s the Catholic Church had no modern presence in the historic town of Godalming—known for its Protestant Nonconformity—until the end of the 19th century, and the parish of St Edmund's has always covered a large rural area of southwest Surrey.

Hospitals, convents and Catholic schools are also within the parish, and a large Polish community has been served by Polish-speaking priests for many years.

The interior decoration dates from various times in the 20th century and includes rare bas-relief Stations of the Cross, an ornate Lady chapel and stained glass by Hardman & Co. After the English Reformation, the Catholic faith almost died out in Surrey.

In 1588, one recusant was recorded in Godalming—an ancient, principally industrial town[5] in the west of the county—and another lived nearby in Thursley, but a survey by Sir William More[note 1] three years later found none.

[10] A Mass centre—sources differ on whether it was a temporary chapel or merely part of a house—was founded in central Guildford in 1792 and was served by émigré priests from France, but it disappeared in or soon after 1801,[11][12] after which Sutton Place resumed its role as "the rendezvous for Surrey Catholics".

By 1860, when priests from Sutton Place founded and built a new Catholic church in Guildford,[12] about 60 residents travelled there every Sunday for Mass.

Rushbrooke of Bowlhead Green, a nearby hamlet, bought a site in Croft Road[C 1] and arranged for a tin tabernacle to be erected.

Recognising the need for a larger permanent church, he took steps to purchase land on a "towering bank of undeveloped hillside" further along Croft Road.

[16] Some of the money was donated anonymously before work started, but after the church opened fundraising began immediately to raise the remainder.

Hyland gave lectures and organised various events,[15] and after the debt was cleared St Edmund's Church was consecrated by Bishop Peter Amigo.

Attendances at St Edmund's Church rose in the late 1950s after a former barracks in the town was converted into temporary accommodation for refugees from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, many of whom were Catholic.

[24] Fr John McSheehy served for ten years from 1969 and established the first St Edmund's Catholic Primary School near Godalming town centre, and also opened dialogue with the Anglican Diocese of Guildford which culminated in Farncombe's Anglican church being used for weekly Catholic Masses, serving the population in the north of the parish.

After Fr Clarke moved to St Mary of the Angels Church in Worthing, new priest Fr Bernard Rowley again took up the idea of centralising worship in a single church: he sought a site within Godalming town, and also considered the former Congregational chapel on Bridge Street[26] which had been sold in 1977 and was in commercial use,[27] but structural problems made it unsuitable for conversion back into a place of worship.

Local tradition claims that it was built on the side of a steep hill overlooking the town so that even its short spire would reach higher than the tall steeple of the parish church,[18] St Peter and St Paul's, which stands on low ground by the river;[5] and Frederick Walters ensured it would "make the most of its dramatic hillside site".

[1] A presbytery is linked to the chancel and the east end of the church; it was also built in 1906 and designed by Frederick Walters, but substantial alterations were carried out in 1957.

[1] The High altar and carved reredos, which depicts saints Edmund, Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo and Thomas of Canterbury,[41] date from 1923.

[44] In its present form it is bounded by the parishes of Guildford to the north, Cranleigh & Bramley to the east, Haslemere to the south and Farnham to the west.

As of 1999, monthly Masses were also said at Ladywell Convent[C 4] on the southern edge of Godalming and at the Hydon Hill Leonard Cheshire Disability Hospice[C 5] in Busbridge.

In 1924 it was allocated its own parish and priest, and the present Church of Our Lady of Lourdes was completed in August of that year (again to the design of Frederick Walters).

Construction started in 1967[50] and continued into 1969; the local firm of David Fry were the building contractors, as they were more than 60 years previously at St Edmund's.

Its success was repeated when further trials took place in summer 1974, and the Bishop of Dorking Kenneth Evans formalised the arrangement in November that year.

Before World War II, a resident of Elstead named Colonel Fitzgerald petitioned Bishop of Southwark Peter Amigo to ask for Mass to be celebrated in the village.

Canon Hyland of St Edmund's Church agreed to send a curate, and Fitzgerald himself fitted up the upper storey of a barn to create a temporary chapel.

Mirosław Slawicki, one of three Polish priests serving the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, is based at St Joseph's Church.