Borough in London, England
Harrow
A hilltop whose name may mean 'pagan shrine' became home to a school that produced Churchill, Byron and an Indian prime minister, plus the crash that shook postwar Britain.
Key information
- Nation
- England
- Population
- About 261,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Harrow School, Harrow on the Hill, Metroland suburbs, Bentley Priory
- What locals are called
- Harrovians (Old Harrovians for former pupils of the school)
- Famous people
- Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru, Elton John
- Football clubs
- Harrow Borough
About Harrow
The hill with a pagan name
Harrow's name is thought to come from the Old English hearg, a heathen shrine or sacred grove. If so, the hilltop was a place of worship long before St Mary's Church settled on it. The medieval church's spire still stands out for miles across the flat suburbs below. The hill is the reason for everything else. It rises sharply out of the surrounding plain, so Harrow on the Hill has the look of a village that was lifted above London and left there. Its steep lanes, old cottages and wide views over the capital still set it apart from the streets around it. The church holds a small, sad footnote to literary history: Allegra, the daughter of Lord Byron, was buried there in 1822.
Thirty local boys and a yeoman farmer
Harrow School began modestly. In 1572 Elizabeth I granted a royal charter to John Lyon, a local yeoman farmer, to found a free grammar school for the boys of the parish. The first plan was for around thirty local pupils. It grew into one of the most famous schools in the world. Its former pupils include Lord Byron, Sir Robert Peel, Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru (the first prime minister of independent India) and King Hussein of Jordan. Churchill was devoted to the place. A special verse of 'Forty Years On' was written in his honour and sung during his 1940 visit. When he returned in October 1941, he asked for 'darker days' in that verse to be changed to 'sterner days'. The school also has its own game, Harrow football, and takes part in the oldest fixture of its kind at Lord's: Eton v Harrow, first played in 1805 with Byron in the Harrow side.
When the suburbs arrived by Tube
Harrow's modern shape comes from the railway. The Metropolitan Railway reached Harrow on the Hill in 1880, and between the wars it sold the dream of a house in the country with a fast train to the City. The railway's publicity department coined the name 'Metro-land' in 1915, and John Betjeman later celebrated it in his poetry and his 1973 television documentary. Places such as Rayners Lane, North Harrow, Pinner and Hatch End filled with semi-detached homes, parades of shops and cinemas. Many were built in the 1920s and 1930s, and plenty of that look survives. The result is a borough of distinct high streets rather than one town centre. Each has its own character, and Harrow's population is notably varied, with large Gujarati, Tamil and Irish communities and many others. That shows in the shops, the restaurants and the festivals, with plenty of excellent Indian food in particular.
The worst peacetime rail crash in Britain
On the morning of 8 October 1952, three trains collided in thick fog at Harrow and Wealdstone station. A packed express ran into the back of a local train, and a second express then ploughed into the wreckage. 112 people died, making it the worst peacetime rail disaster in Britain. The crash helped drive the push to install automatic warning systems for drivers on the national network. Wealdstone, the working-class, industrial side of the borough, still carries the memory. The area has long been the practical counterpart to the grand hill. It was once home to the Kodak factory, a major local employer, though that site has since been redeveloped.
Stanmore's secret war room
At the northern edge of the borough, Bentley Priory in Stanmore was the headquarters of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. From there Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding directed the defence of Britain's skies in 1940, with the system of radar, observers and phone lines that fed information to the pilots. The house is now a museum dedicated to the story. Stanmore and Pinner give the borough its leafier side. Pinner, the birthplace of Elton John (then Reginald Dwight, born in 1947), still holds its Pinner Fair, which dates from a charter of 1336 and fills the high street with stalls and rides each year.
Football, cricket and everything else
Harrow Borough FC, nicknamed the Boro, is the local football club. It plays non-league football at Earlsmead, and its supporters are some of the most loyal in the area. Cricket gets the grander stage thanks to the school's Lord's fixture, but local clubs and parks keep the sport alive across the borough. The Harrow Arts Centre in Hatch End hosts theatre, music and community events. Its principal venue, the Grade II-listed Elliott Hall, was built in 1904 for the Royal Commercial Travellers' School. Anthony Trollope grew up at Harrow, and he was famously unhappy as a day boy at the school, a hard start for a man who became one of Victorian England's most prolific novelists.