The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Harrow, Middlesex*

Harrow, Middlesex Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• The tube station. It leads to somewhere else.
• The woolfrog statue
• The Elmslie End at the late lamented Lower Mead.It is now Tesco's magazine rack.
• The Tithe Barn
• The attempted art-deco cinema that shows Bolywood films. With a little cash it would look great, bit rundown at the moment.
• St Georges -I love the cartoon characters on the front despite comments on how it was a 'horrible building'!!!(my sister was there for the opening and said it was the best opening she's been to!)
• Corner of Hindes opp Tesco.Sadly it's now bein developed. wealdstone station The Roxborough pub,sadly long gone
• St.Marys church is just beautiful.
• Rayners Lane Station
• NSC building
• ITS GOT 2 B THE 70#S SHOP ON HARROW HIGH ROAD OPPOSITE TRINITY
• st george's. only for the green dome which you can see from miles if at high ground, and which is lit up at night.
• the old "railway" pub on the bridge... why why why?????
• Harrow Skate Park
• Has to be the church on Harrow Hill - still dominates the area.
• st georges-that lurid green is so attractive!! busstation-you no your gonna see someone you know!! my house headstone manor-sentimental value
• I used to go to school with the bloke who lived in that house opposite the Civic Centre with curl up and die. It was his brother that wrote that but I think it's a squat now.
• Harrow School
• The front of the St. Georges building with the big warner brothers figures , as it reminds you that you are very close to a Disney shop and fatty Arbuckles
• The Old Adams furniture buidling in St Anns Road was on the opening sequence of the original Randal and Hopkirk (Deceased)
• All the buildings on harrow on the hill are nice
• sorry to let you know that the "Railway" tavern as featured on the who's album is now a pile of rubble if you want a pic let me know...p.s love your site its true!! Harrow is grey!!!lol
• The Trinity
• An old house opposite the Civic Centre which had the words "Smile and be Damned" and "Curl Up and Die" written on the window. The "Temple" in Canons Park.
• The Civic Centre (ha ha!!!). No, but seriously, the high street in pinner is very picturesque.
• st georges
• Cumberland Hotel opposite Debenhams.
• Harrow School on Harrow on the Hill

Demolish It Now Building

• st georges cos due to it the cool cinema with a wurlitzer has closed
• Yeahh! The permanently unfinished block opposite Tesco is now finished!! It is a showroom for MFI; worth the wait or what?? Bring back the block!
• St Ann's Shopping Centre. Very outdated mall, shown up more by the impressive St George's Shopping Centre. And definitely the Honeybun Estate. Is very bad, Harrow Council tried to disguise the dump by giving it the name Honeybun so we all would think it was a lovely place to live.
• st.georges should be flattened because, 1)it spoils the brilliant view from the top of the Harrow-on-the-hill green and 2)there was a blooming brilliant green where the monstrousity stands,which was a great meeting place and drinking spot.
• Northwick Park Hospital - who ever built this 1 needs to see a dr its a right state a mess a concrete oblisque thats been there too long also st. georges and that bloody bus station full of little paki and black nounces....
• The Zor-something that used to be the Cine Bar - - Yuck!!!
• NPH hospital
• Harrow Bus Station- It is full of attitude and why should it be on our doorstep. Its askin 4 truble and we get it too.
• Destroy Harrow Bus-station - it is the lair of satan himself. Demolish it and save us all.
• the rubbish places in wealdstone. make it into a forest i say.
• The council estate in Weladstone. Bit of a no go zone, and I live right around the corner.
• Harrow School of Gymnastics they keep trying to buy the skatepark and build a carpark on it. (as if there isnt enough car park arround it.)
• St Anns and St George shopping centres, with all the teenage tracksuit brigade inside.
• i once met tom jones
• civic centre-its so ugly the building by tescos-its been there since i was born moonlight-so i can build my own club on top of it that burnt down pub-for the same reason hatchend high school-4 wasted years!!!!!! sacred heart and bentley wood-i just never liked those schools
• Harrow Civic Centre - I served a four-year term as a councillor 1982 - 1986
• the wykes office block for wasting 15 minutes of my life by turning out to just be an office block and not a store.
• Harrow school!!!!!!!!!!11
• "Harrow -henge"-opposite Tesco's on Hindes rd corner. someone please do it now!!
• Yates.
• THE CIVIC CENTRE
• Robert Dyas Iorn mongers I pray every morning that I have to be there that it has burned down so if there are any arsonists in Harrow it will burn like a bonfire RIP Robert Dyas after the hours of 9-6 though because I might be working
• That buliding next to Tesco thats been left unfinished for about 7 years!
• All of St George's Centre - Preferably with all its residents still inside!!
• ST.GEORGES SHOPPING CENTER
• Civic Centre. And all those nasty 1970s concrete eye-sore offices round the back of College Road (near Gayton Road Library).
• The unfinished building that has been sitting on the corner of Station Rd and Hindes Rd for God knows how many years.
• a scary house in elmington ave
• Well its not a building, but the council payed a lot of money to have a sculpture put up opposite Green Hill Collete (next to Harrow Train Station) and its crap. What the tax payers paid for was a crappy steel leaf.
• The unfinihed building opposites Tesco's is so ugly, it must go.
• Not exactly a building, but will somebody PLEASE demolish the hideous statue called "Katie" opposite Burtons in the town centre - continually vandalised anyway - should be finished off permanently!

The Best Things

• The-genuinely-wonderful-and-soon-to-be-once-again-mighty-Wealdstone F.C. and the laughably uncomfortable look on Harrow schoolboys faces when they have to come down the hill and mix with us normal people.
• Harrow-on-the-Hill. As you ascend the hill, you leave behind the ghettos of either South Harrow, Harrow or Wembley and enter a glorious tree-lined paradise. Shame that when up there all you can do is have a coffee at Cafe Rouge for £5, look out over London, check out the school uniform shop and get arrested for looking dodgy in such a posh area.
• tesco
• THE JUNCTION PUB
• Everyone that went to Hatch end High from 1991-1995
• George's Gange, Waii!!(HW)
• Closeness to town, pubs open late.
• loads of places to go and meet up with mates- for lunch, coffee, dinner and pubbing. Nice to feel like "home" and you tend to a lot of people to say hi to.
• I just wanna say that the best thing about Harrow is the school on the Hill!!!!!!!
• The hustle and Bustle in the town centre on a Saturday.
• nice people, shopping, good access to london and watford, lots of parks, and the fact that i'm leaving it for university in two weeks WOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
• harrow Skatebord centre and Headstone trails.
• the fact that there are trains to get you out of here to somewhere with at least a bit of excitement
• the bus station and sams chicken, the fact that every one from kilburn wembley neasden stone bridge willesden harlesden st raphs chalkhill acton and basically the whole of ealing and brent feels the need to come to harrow on a daily basis, its really easy to make money in harrow (wont say how) theres loads to do in harrow (cos theres so many people),good train system,harrows still london sort of
• Relieving yourself in the multiples of alleyways along the main streets. Or is that illegal?
• Sitting on top of the hill on a summer eveing watching the world go by.
• the middle
• Women
• The HarrowBeast.... (More to come)
• When Kitch was in so was harrow
• You're never more than five minutes drive from the border
• Hatch End college in the 1970s - what a riot. Anyone remember it? One ex-student is now the distinguished leader of a nearby council (We still have the photos and letters Tony - you have been warned ...) Watching Grange Furnishings (opposite the station) burn down in the late 1970s
• THE bmx PARK!!!
• Being able to walk around at night through the town centre without being attacked (unless you're especially unlucky!). Going up St Mary's graveyard late at night after the pubs shut at you're halfway gone. Always good for seeing who of your mates is a bit on the wimpy side!!
• The Hill in summer
• st gregorys the litten tree and the nice big house on top of harrow on the hill
• The transport in the Harrow area is very good and reliable
• The beautiful views and oasis like quality on Harrow on the Hill.
• Tudors Night Club, on the Bridge at Harrow and Wealdstone - 10 years ago [Back in the eighties], a pound to get in and 50 pence a drink! Even though the carpet smelled like puke, it was a brilliant night out.
• Pinner has one of the oldest street fairs in England since Edward 2. Whitsun time. Great for kids but they (the Council) always want it banned.
• The Best thing is obviously Wealdstone Football Club (first EVER winners of the non-league double, in 1985). Now a Tescos. The club has gone really down hill and now plays at Yeading somewhere.

The Worst Things

• Crime. Harrow & Wealdstone Station is connected to Harlesden, Harrow-on-the-Hill Station is connected to Wembley Park. The geezers who are too scared to commit crimes in those towns head to Harrow and clean-up with easy pickings. If they don't get you, the pissed-up louts will batter you when the pubs close.
• the buses are ALWAYS late!
• The friggin teeny boppers that get in the pobs/clubs! No little girl, I don't want your phone number!
• The 'attitude' that is around and the fact that i feel i cant walk down the road safely in my own area.
• The LITTER!!
• THE LACK OF INDEPENDENT SHOPS AND WHEN THE HARROW SCHOOL BOYS FLOOD DOWN TO THE 'STREETS'
• Gangs of little 12 year olds who mug people for mobile phones. Those guys are scum, steer well clear. They were responsible for the GBH 2 minutes from my place last week and the written off cavalier down my road.
• The Pikeys that live at cox Place next to the skate park, they suck all they do is cause trubble steal bikes brake glass mug people and other stuff that is fucked up bern them burn them face first.
• smell, litter - especially around McDonalds on Shaftesbury Avenue, ex-boyfriends who still live in area.
• Teenagers - hordes of them - with nothing to do but hang around in awful shopping centres. The general unfriendliness of everyone although this isn't just Harrow - it's the whole of London.
• Typical, suburban, mostly middle class town. All the usual high street shops (McDonalds especially!), rows of semi-detatched red brick houses, too near to London (for me!)
• the lack of good anything
• old people, high crime, litter, graffiti, the buses are always late, the boys are mostly nasty looking
• Relieving yourself in an alleyway then find you have stepped in some previous user's puddle.
• The bus drivers. Once they have earned a high enough "hit" rate in neighbouring boroughs they are allowed to start on Harrow residents. It's a good way of keeping down the old slow fogies and cyclists.
• Ugly women
• All the dodgy posers who hang around St Georges bus station trying to look hard.
• Yates, Trendies, Traffic wardens (even though I don't drive), The bouncers at the Trinity
• yates pub what a shite hole!!!!!!!!
• Harrow College - its crap! Also no Ice rinks - you have to go to Queensway or Alexandra Palace.
• What they built to replace Grange Furnishings, which burnt down in the late 1970s (see 'The Best Things')
• THE JOURNEY TO THE PARK
• Trying to get from Harrow to anywhere East of Edgeware by bus or tube... Good luck my friend!!
• Crime
• All the old people, and only a handful of skaters, and all the gay rollerbladers
• not many late licences
• Crime is on the up.
• Severe lack of nightclubs and the fact that any attempt to start one up is immediately squashed by the council. The huge internet cafe in St. George's Centre was intended for a nightclub before the council stepped in.
• Parking at Northwick Park Hospital.

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

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Credits

Last updated: 2007-07-09