Harrow on the Hill Harrow School
Church Hill
Old schools. In 1572 John Lyon, a local farmer established the school, on his death management passed to a Board of Governors. Their first duty was to replace the schoolhouse. It opened in 1615. Designed by a Mr. Sly in brick it faced Church Hill, with conservative Tudor details typical of its date. The single-schoolroom lay below rooms for head master, usher, and governors’ room with panelling of 1661. It is described as the best preserved 17th century schoolroom in the country. All the exterior features date from 1819-21, when Cockerell enlarged and embellished the original school of 1608-15 adding a library and a speech room with a modern mezzanine and plain glass balcony by Alan Irvine, 1976. There are sculptures of Spencer Perceval, R. B. Sheridan, Byron and Cardinal Manning. The names of boys before 1847 are carved on the oak panelling including four of Harrow's seven prime ministers.
Memorial plaque to Lord Shaftesbury on the Speech Room wall.
St Mary’s Church. This is on the site of a hilltop settlement and may be a pagan religious centre. The church was the most important in Middlesex and a peculiar of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Its spire can be seen from miles around. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, began construction here in 1087 but all that remains is the lower section of the tower. The church was rebuilt in the 13th, with the upper stages of the tower and its spire covered with 12 tons of lead. It was rrestored by G. G. Scott in 1846 when it was faced with flint and a vestry added. In 1900 T.C.Lewis Co. installed an organ which has been modernised since. There are thirteen ancient brasses including John Lyon and his wife. There are ten bells in the tower.
Churchyard. This is surrounded by railings and was closed to burials in 1884. Byron's daughter Allegra is buried near the south porch. There are limes, shrubs, planes and yews. A medieval vicarage of 1233-40 was south of the ground.
Lychgate. This was built in memory of early 19th vicar John Cunningham
Churchyard extension. The mid-19th extension is laid out in a quarter-circle and dominated by yews, Cedar of Lebanon, Scots pine, rhododendron, holly and a large beech. A footpath passes this area and refers to an ‘ancient burial ground’ it calls Mendonca Forest.
Churchfields. Below the graveyard to the west – these show evidence of medieval farming and terracing
Woodland north of the church, this is thought to have contained carp ponds dating from 1323 belonging to the Archbishops...
Parish room and memorial garden.
Vicarage. Built in 1870 incorporating an earlier wing from 1812. Childhood home of Annie Besant. For a while used as a boarding house for Harrow School.
The Grove. This was once the rectory and manor house. It dates from 1750 but rebuilt after a fire in 1830 which left only the frontage. It was leased to R.B. Sheridan’s in 1778 and later ugh by School Head Edward Bowen who left it to the school. It is now boarding accommodation for the school. A lake in the grounds was filled in in 1903.
Crown Street
This was previously Hog Lane or Hogarth Lane
This was the site of a market and fair from the 13th to 16th
6 Church of England Endowment Fund.
16 North Star pub. Closed in 1957 now a house which still has its pub signage for Beskins Watford Brewery.
26 Bricklayer’s Arms, now housing. It opened in 1751 and closed in 1907
43 a plaque by the gate, plus a cement sculptural plate, claims that this is the site of the Crown Inn
Crown Court. Modern housing which might be on the site of the Crown Inn
50 Chapel built for Strict Baptists who had broken with Byron Street Chapel in 1863. Now an office.
Football Lane
This was once a path across fields,
New Music School. Designed 1890-1 by E. S. Prior who trained under Norman Shaw. , a contrast to its predecessor showing the growth of the school,
The Knoll. Boarding house by Dennis Lennon and Partners 1980. Replaced The Old Knoll.
Mathematics and Physics Schools. Built 1971.
Museum Schools. Built 1884-6 the first of the Harrow school buildings which are in High Victorian Gothic. The Butler Museum, is on the top floor- natural history, birds, etc. opened as a museum for the school in 1886
Science Schools. Designed by Hayward 1874. Extended later.
Peel House. Built 1981 by Edginton Spink & Hyne.
Garlands Lane
Was previously called Rifle Range Lane
Harrow School Sports Hall and Swimming Pool. Built 1984 by Design Build. The school has facilities for nearly 30 different sports. - Astroturf pitches, a golf course, a swimming pool, a sports centre, tennis, rackets and fives courts
Lyons. Named after the School’s founder, John Lyon. It opened in 2010 as the first new House to be built at Harrow for over 100 years.
Parade ground. Provided in 1910.
Grove Hill
Elmfield. An early 19th house taken over by the school. In 1893 boys from an earlier Elmfield in the High Street were transferred to a building on Grove Hill. The school bought Elmfield in 1914. It was enlarged in 1958.
Churchill Schools. Brutalist computer and design centre for Harrow School, 1980s.
The Copse. House built in The Grove Estate by Head Harrow School head, E.Bowen. Later in use by the school.
1 Stables. Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University UK Centre
Speech Room. This is a purpose built room for the teaching of public speaking. It was built in 1874-7 by C.R.Cockerell and an asymmetrical tower was added in 1919. There are figures of St George and St Michael and a statue of Queen Elizabeth brought from Ashridge Park in Hertfordshire in 1925. Inside are the regimental flags of the school's nineteen winners of the Victoria Cross. In 1976 it was converted into a modern gallery by Alan Irvine,
War Memorial Building. In 1917 a Harrow War Memorial committee began to raise funds for a memorial. The Building was opened by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin MP in 1926. Herbert Baker designed the building. The shrine was completed by 1923 and open to visits. There is a once-controversial terrace with a spectacular stairs but inside is bare stone domes and dark woodwork. Elizabethan panelling and fittings came from Brooke House, Hackney, teak floor boards came from HMS St Vincent. Lady Fitch required that a lamp be kept lit constantly in honour of the memory of her son and all fallen soldiers. In the Second World War basement was used as the Air Raids Precautions Wardens Post
Art School The older part is by W. C. Marshall, 1891 plus a mezzanine floor of 1987. In the wall are stone medallions of Hogarth and Reynolds, 1919.
Plaque on the wall of the Art School, which says that Charles I paused here in his flight from Oxford to Nottingham to water his horse.
Leaf Schools. Boarding house. 1936 by A. L. N. Russell includes some old brickwork from the stables of The Grove Scanty remains of Sheridan’s Stables. Stone tablet in archway inscribed: "Built in 1936 out of money bequeathed to the school by Herbert Leaf (
Rendalls. Built in 1853 by Barnes was the first purpose-built boarding house.
Grove Hill House The Foss. Built 1854 by E. Habershon as a boarding house
Plaque on the wall, corner with Peterborough Road. This was the site of Britain’s first fatal car accident in 1899.
Harrow School.
Founded by John Lyon who died in 1592, leaving money for a building now The Old Schools. It was a local grammar school until the 19th. In the late 17th and 18th the boarding houses were established. The first new buildings were in 1819-21. under the headship of Charles Vaughan 1844-59, the school's numbers swelled from less than a hundred to 466 and this continued with new buildings and a wider curriculum,
Harrow School Playing Fields
A park developed for school use. Manly a golf course with a small nature reserve. There are oaks and a lake on the golf course which may date from Brown's landscaping, and there are yews, deodars and Wellingtonia. Brown worked on the Flambards estate.
Medieval windmill, this is thought to have been near the site of a manorial mill near the ‘Flambards’.
Harrow School golf course. Harrow School Golf Club is a members' club which uses Harrow School's nine-hole course. Created by Donald Steel in 1978, the course presents exciting challenges and is on a high point.
Nature Reserve. This is a woodland area with a small pond was created as a nature reserve. This maybe a clump of trees from earlier landscaping.
Park Lake. This dates from early 19th and was formed by a large dam, in the 1820s woodland and shrubberies bordering it to the east. Harrow School Angling Club was founded in 1988 and uses the lake for fishing.
A public footpath west of the lake which may be an ancient track.
Upper Redding Fields
Ducker Fields
Bathing place is Duck puddle. Swimming pool in use by 1811 for the boys in a natural pond.
High Street
New Schools. Built 1855 by Frederick Barnes.
Chapel. Built 1854-7 by G.G.Scott, the gift of Dr Vaughan. Inside is a Crimea War Memorial and memorial tablets including a South African War Memorial. The crypt was converted to a memorial chapel in 1918 by Sir Charles Nicholson. Easily mistaken for a local parish church.
Vaughan Library. Built 1861-3 by G.G.Scott.
Headmasters House. This was designed by Decimus Burton in 1840 and enlarged by him in 1845-6. It replaced a house destroyed by fire in 1838.
Post box – mid 19th hexagonal Penfold design
5 Old house was Pub
5 Shepherd Churchill Dining Hall by Dennis Lennon & Partners, 1976, this is approached formally by a flight of steps flanked by small lodges, leading down to a garden with pool and pergolas. A big pitched roof with central clock-turret. Separate masters' and boys' areas, split up by brick piers into house units. Balconies and a big canted bay overlook the garden; the services are tucked in neatly beneath.
Druries. Established in the 1790s, it was Harrow's first “large” Boarding House but, today, is the smallest. Its name comes from House Masters, Henry and Ben Drury, 1806 to 1863. Current building is 1865 by C.F.Hayward. Stone foliage with an owl and a squirrel.
Crown and Anchor. This was on the site of Druries' garden. It is was mentioned, as 'le Anker', in 1683 and may have been much older. Called the 'abode of Bliss', because landlord named Bliss. Demolished in the mid-19th and replaced by shops, themselves demolished in 1929
Moretons. On the site of The Queen’s Head. Georgian private house mainly rebuilt in 1828, with additions of after 1870 and 1881 by Revd William Oxenham, built the present house that there, In Great War, the School Governors bought. A large underground air-raid shelter remains in the garden from the Second World War.
Adjacent to 36 Drinking fountain on site of old town well of 1816, 245' and dug through 200' of chalk. Granite with an obelisk
11 Flambards. This is not the 14th house but was built when part of the estate was developed by Harrow School.
The Park. One of the older houses, n c.1795/7 Page built a more substantial house to the north of the Flambards old house, set on the highest point of his property, and designed for him by John Nash It was later called Harrow Villa, then Harrow Park, and by the late 19th The Park. It was used as a school boarding house from 1831 by the Revd William Phelps. Henry Holland and John Nash were involved with its building and decoration, and there is a Coade stone lion above the library window. It is on the site of the original and is ‘Flambards’ a more substantial house. The grounds were landscaped in 1768-71 by Brown for Francis Herne.
34 Harrow School Shop and bookshop. With commemorative plaque outside in Latin.
Bradbys. Built in 1848 by The Revd H Kearny and is named after former House Master Edward Henry Brady. Following closure during the Second World War it was occupied by Malvern College. Eagles on the building came from the lodge at Lowlands
49 Old Civic office, replaced by 88-90.
52 site of White Hart
88-90 old Fire Station. Replaced by Northolt station prior to Greater London Council taking over Middlesex Fire Brigade in 1965
88-90 Civic building of 1913 replacing earlier offices also in High Street, from 1935 included the health dept, and the education dept by 1947 to 1966
Kenton Road
Harrow Hill Golf Course. A 9 hole, private, parkland golf course, on Metropolitan Open Land with nature reserve and cafe
Lowlands Road
A medieval rectory manor was sited here and earthworks might indicate a carriageway leading to it.
40 Wards Freehouse. Pub in an old shop in a parade, it has much ornamental tiling topped by a richly moulded tower, above which there is lead covered, 'bell' shaped capping with a tall finial
73-77 Jubilee Academy. This is an alternative provision secondary school which provides a range of subjects. It is owned by the Harrow Alternative Provision Academy Trust
Lowlands Estate was a ‘big house’ described as ‘a pretty villa’. Built in the early 19th and called Cassetta Cottage. After Isabella Roche died in 1909 (aged 101) it became Harrow County School for Girls. Eagles from the lodge were given to Harrow School and are at Bradbys.
Harrow County School for Girls opened alongside Lowlands House in 1914. In 1974 it became a Sixth Form College, called Lowlands College until 1987 when it became Greenhill College and in 1999 merged with Weald College to become Harrow College
Harrow College. This is their Harrow on the Hill campus. In 2015, they opened The Enterprise Centre here. It provides academic and vocational courses for young people and a range of professional and non-professional programmes for adult students.
73 Lowlands recreation ground. There is a new performance space and cafeteria with money from the Mayor of London’s Outer London Funding. A small park not mentioned in Harrow’s list of parks. It appears to have opened in the late 1930s and to have had a large round but unexplained area with is still there– something which would normally indicate a specialist previous use. Maybe a planned grand entrance to the station
War memorial. This was erected after the Great War in the corner of the site at the junction of Grove Hill and Lowlands Road. Until .1920 this was the site of the village pound. It is by William Douglas Caroe in Portland stone. In the form of a wayside calvary cross of an Octagonal base with four steps, inscribed with the names of the dead. Panels reads: Harrow on the Hill Town Memorial Their name liveth for evermore - For God and king, hearth and home - As gold in the furnace he proved them .. To the glorious memory of those who died for us.
Meadow View
Enclave of modern housing accessed via a carriage entrance at 29 West Street – this was once a butcher and slaughter house
Music Hill
A public footpath within Harrow School grounds. A steep lane down the side of Harrow Hill which is part of the Capital Ring
Nelson Road
16a/b site of Lord Nelson pub
Peterborough Road
Opened in 1879
Old Music School. Built 1873 as small as a wayside chapel, a low building, set into the steep hillside, with a humble character... It is now the Museum of Harrow Life
Garlands. Built as a boarding house for the school in 1863 by C. F. Hayward, showing the overwhelmingly assertive public school style of the mid 19th at its most concentrated. It No longer belongs to the school, and has been flats since 1987.
35 The Old Knoll. Used as a boarding house and built 1867, by C. F. Hayward. New Knoll replaced it and it then became became masters' accommodation
Roxborough Park
Our Lady and St Thomas of Canterbury. Cardinal Manning, an old boy of Harrow School, authorised the building of a small Chapel in the 1873 on this site Architecturally, the style of the Church is in the manner of the English Perpendicular of the 12th – 14th
Station Approach
Harrow on the Hill Station. Opened 1880 it lies between Rickmansworth and Marylebone on Chiltern Railways, and between Preston Road and West Harrow and between Preston Road and West Harrow on the Metropolitan Line.. Had the governors of Harrow School not made objections during the planning stage, it is possible that the line might have followed a different route taking it closer to the town centre on the hill. Opened as ‘Harrow’ by the Metropolitan Railway as the Kingsbury and Harrow Railway and Watkin. It originally ran from here to Baker Street. The main buildings on the down side were for the important town on the hill the entrance on the up side for Greenhill. The station was designed with a clock tower by A.McDermott. Harrow to Pinner opened by the Metropolitan Railway in 1885. In 1894 the name was changed to ‘Harrow on the Hill’. In 1899 the Marylebone service started The Harrow to Uxbridge line was built by the Metropolitan with steam traction in 1904, Last station into London to allow Great Central trains to stop at Metropolitan Stations. The station was rebuilt completely in Holden style in 1935 with major reconstruction between 1939 and 1948 under LT's 'New Works' programme, resulting in a station with six tracks and three island platforms. In the 1980s the College Road entrance was demolished
Fly under. On leaving Harrow, Oxbridge trains use a fly under which segregates them from the 'main line' to Amersham and beyond. This was constructed in anticipation of extra traffic which would be generated by the opening of the Metropolitan route to Watford, together with the introduction of new electric services to Rickmansworth, and was in use from 14th September 1925
Metropolitan Electric Substation. Built in 1905 this took power from Neasden
Goods Yard
Station Road
With College Road and St.Ann's Road was a tiny hamlet. ItWas previously called Greenhill Lane.
The Grove Open Space
Also called Grovefields, this is a steep grassy slope on Harrow Hill. It the site of a medieval rectory manor in 1233-40 later incorporated into Harrow School. The area was part Harrow Manor, owned by the Archbishop of Canterbury but in 1094 it became part of Rectory Manor estate. In 1537 it was leased to Thomas Wriothsley, who built fishponds. In 1805 there were pleasure grounds, woodland, ponds, and kitchen gardens. There are strip lynchets. Evidence of medieval, or earlier, agriculture. On the hill there is a post-medieval earth mound t the top and sites of ponds and sluice at the bottom. As an open space there are tarmac paths, perimeter trees, and a steel sculpture of a leaf in the north-west corner.
West Street
2 site of a forge and ironmongers shop. False window on the first floor with a make-pretend cat looking out.
13 Sugarloaf beer house. Timber house from the 17th with floor level below street level.
30 Castle pub. The current building dates back to 1901 bur the pub itself is 1716. New a Fullers pub it is on the Campaign for Real Ale's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors.
31-35 Poor House recorded in 1724. With treadmill etc
Parish Mission Room. Built 1884-5 by E.S. Prior. Became SRM Plastics, Plastic injection moulding service
87 Electricity works. Power generating station opened in West Street in 1895 by the Harrow Electric Light and Power Co. on land leased from Harrow School. Designed by R.Crompton. Power generating station opened in West Street in 1895 by the Harrow Electric Light and Power Co. on land leased from Harrow School. Used smokeless welsh coal and had a reservoir on the roof. Building Later in in office use.
87 Old Pie House. Probably 15th this is a part of a larger building consisting which was just a hall originally open from ground to roof. Inside are timber framed walls with a central tie beam supporting a plain kingpost. The Name is for a mediaeval court for a local fair "pied poudre". It is joined in some way to the Power House
93 Fire Station 1888. In other use.
Sources
Bowlt. Harrow Past
Cinema Theatre Association Newsletter
Clunn. The face of London
Cooper. Harrow Walkabout
Cotswold Archaeology. The Duries and the Grove
Field. London Place Names
Harrow School. Web site
London Borough of Harrow. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Remembers. Web site
London Parks and Gardens. Web site
Middlesex CC. History of Middlesex
Open House. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. North West London
Stevenson, Middlesex
Walford .Village London,
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