The Knowhere Guide

Other Stuff in Harrow, Middlesex*

Harrow, Middlesex Stuff You Don't Get Anywhere Else

The Stuff We Can't Fit In Somewhere Else

• The Hill is a strange place. I think it is one of the few places that would be above water if the thames barrier broke. but you would need to get this confirmed. There is a plaque on the wall near the Church on the hill, that commemorates the first ever fatal car crash in britain and it happened on that spot. There is also a gravestone that goes into gory detail about the occupants horrific injuries when he became the first ever fatal train crash victim. Its by the path not far from Byron's favourite fenced off tombstone. Which I heard was fenced off to keep the werewolf occupant in as much as the trespassers out. This last point is of course bollocks but sounds good. And adds interest to a book I read called Vampire which was a novel based on Byron becoming a vampire, I can get the name if the author if you want but cant recall it off hand. In real life his body never did return from Greece where he died. I also was told that the grass green oppposite the Cafe Cafe bar was the site of the last public hanging. I was told there was a palque but i have never managed to find it nor confirm this anyplace else so suspect it may not be true.
• Heres a poem I wrote about my hometown Harrow - http://www.quotesandsayings.com/pstudyxxx.htm. You decide on its abstract truth and let me know. MY view - I love Harrow, its my home, no matter how many good or bad things I could say, its my home ...
• The lack of fucking darts boards anywhere. The Castle, Kingsfield Arms and Half Moon - you know who you are! Taking down boards loses business you old farts.
• It would be good to have a list of local markets, events ect, Gardening? Historical events/places lots of local history would be good.
• Statistics actually prove scientifically that Harrow Borough FC are worse than useless.
• Harrow is NOT in Middlesex anymore, despite what Russell Grant might say. It has been part of northwest London for at least thirty years. Get over it , Middlesex doesn't exist now, its just a postal district.
• Another interesting (?) thing you can see up on Harrow Hill is bricked up windows. I know that doesn't sound very interesting but they date from when there were taxes on Daylight (True!!), People bricked up their windows but then painted pictures of the inside of rooms on the bricks so the neighbours didn't know they couldn't afford their taxes! Also there is still St. Anselms School, at least I hope there is otherwise I have no idea where my sister goes everyday! Unfortunately it is no longer painted in the rather fetching shades of brown - bah!
• theres always loads of rude boys hanging out in front of NYC, they shoulder-slam you as you walk past you.
• NPH social club circa 1980- 1984.happy days ( hello grahame,simon,janet,and mad mick -large pernod chasers)
• http://www.wfcsc.co.uk Website for Wealdstone FC Supporters Club. http://www.wealdstonefc.co.uk Website for Wealdstone FC Youth Academy. Full time education and full time football training. From the club that gave the world Stuart Pearce and Vinnie Jones
• where did the cine bar go to at North Harrow?
• I once bought a second hand Boating Jacket from Harrow school whenever I was a young Mod in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Then I worked in pizza hut in Rayner's Lane. Then next thing you know I am taking pictures of a young oriental girl in the graveyard on the hill. A'int it funny how it all works out.
• Someone said that Witmore (sic) is spelt Whitmore. Well you're wrong again. The W at the beginning of the word is actually an S (Shitmore). Never used to be, but when the year 11's did their exams in 2000 and left, it went down. Now the fire alarm is set off 3 times a day by the morons who fill the place. I really do feel sorry for the teachers!
• Harrow; the middle class suburbia from hell. The place where the kids whose mum is a doctor and dad is a lawyer and their aunt is a teacher at Whitmore High School rebel by smoking weed on the swings in West Harrow park and then nicking a bunch of mobile lights from the vodaphone shop in harrow. really cool. harrow is the place where couples get jiggy on the hill and then walk around for the rest of the week feeling like rude boys, innit. The place where the middle class sector combine with the working class; where girls with slicked back hair, drainpipe pvc trousers and a boum leather jacket tut at the girls in three inch heels, tight sweaters and mini-skirts as they march through the bus station. harrow is full of the pretentious, wannabee, stuck-up teenageres who you find everywhere. those kids with no direction who mock those who are actually blessed to have a future that doesn't involve the words mcdonalds or drive-thru. harrow. home.
• HARROW SUCKS!!!
• Sexiest People: A certain dashing guitar player(initials SJM) is definitely a big attraction of Harrow. Catch a glimpse at the Fornax and Firkin on Tuesday nights...
• The Railway - (yes the one on that album cover) BURNT DOWN last week (today is 4th March 2000). The roof and the whole inside is gone, leaving just an empty shell. Rock'n'Roll history destroyed!
• The Railway, a pub on Wealdstone bridge is featured on the cover of The Who's Meaty, Beaty Big & Bouncy.
• Doughnut, who appeared in the 1970's TV series 'Double Deckers' real name Douglas something or other was in the year below me at Harrow High school, a terrible private school that stood at the junction of Gayton and Sheepcote road until the early eighties (I think), when the retirement flats were built. Witmore (sic) is spelt WHitmore, my mother used to teach there in the late 1950's when it was called Lascelles School, also my wife went there in the 1970's.
• There's a haunted house in Elm Park Road, Pinner Green, near Bob Holness house - don't know the story behind it but it does look properly scary.
• what can i say about harrow? quite alot really seeing as its the most booooorrrriiiinnnngggg place in the world. nothing to do, nowhere to go. i really really wanted to fill in the interesting clubs pubs cafes bars shops but there are none. none at all. all the pubs are full of 12 year old boys in their fruity ben sherman shirts and 12 year old girls in their 'i must look at least 15 and a half' get up. everyone votes tory. our famous people include bob holness and molly weir.it always looks grey. as you can see it's my favourite place in the world. the sooner it is blown up, the better. when i did english at weald college (which has now become something really pants like harrow college) we read this john betjeman poem about bombs falling on slough, and to finish all i can do is quote a slightly altered first line: 'come friendly bombs, and fall on harrow'
• George Michael is actually from Watford. His dad had a restaurant in Edgware (Mr. Jacks)but he used to work in Harrow and wrote the solo from "Careless Whisper" on the bus on the way to work.
• GET SOME MORE bike SHOPS IN THERE SOMEWHERE
• Harrow and kenton used to be two cities now they are combined, they joined together about 20 yrs ago so the area is pretty big now.Anyone searching for Kenton needs to go to the Harrow site.
• Harrow's population is about 220,000... nearing a quarter of a million! And FYI, St Anselms First & Middle School is still very much alive & kicking!! I understand it got the highest results in the borough for that age-range this year just gone.
• If you want to see where Lord Byron is really buried check this out
• Byron's daughter was 'Ada Augusta' not 'Augusta Ada'. Sorry, my mistake.
• LORD BYRON IS NOT BURIED ON HARROW-ON-THE-HILL. George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron 1788-1824, died in Italy. His body took a long journey to England after some speculation that he would be buried in Greece. Permission was asked that he be buried at Westminster Abbey, but was refused. He was finally buried in the Byron family vault at Hucknall Parish Church in Nottinghamshire on 16th July 1824. His daughter, August Ada Byron, was also buried in the family vault in 1852. She was the world's first computer programmer, working with Babbages mechanical invention. In 1993 a high level computer language, ADA, was named after her. The Peachey Stone is a slab on a tomb at St. Mary's Church, Harrow-on-the-Hill. It was here that Lord Byron supposedly sat and wrote poetry while a schoolboy at Harrow-on-the-Hill School.
• The poet buried in St Mary's Cemetery is "Lord Byron" and Sir Roger Bannister used to live in Witmore Road near Lascells School, which is now called "Witmore"
• 'The Edge' in the new St. Georges Centre has been redone and renamed. It's now called 'Kaleidoscope' and there's no internet cafe there, just arcades and such like.
• St Anselms school ( no longer exists) Roxborough Ave Harrow Near Harrow Boys School.went there 1943 to 1950 I attended that school
• Sorry about this (yes, I can read the message above) but it used to be a pretty place before the council approved the massive development plans in the 1970s - continues.
• New shopping complex in Central Harrow boasts a multiplex cinema and all the usual expensive shops.
• The Edge entertainment centre (including obligatory Internet cafe).in the St George's centre.
• One of the best places I can remember now (20 years on) is the graveyard on Harrow-on-the-Hill, right next to Harrow School, with a real nice view over north west London and a relief map showing you what exactly you're looking at. Obviously can't remember any more now who it was, but someone famous (poet or author) was buried there. To get there, leave Harrow-on-the-Hill tube station to the south, follow the foot path in front of you, bearing a bit to the left, go through an alley, keep on going until you hit a park, up to your left, at the top of the hill is the grave yard.
  A good friend of mine who grew up at her Gran's house in Harrow-on-the-Hill told me that the famous person buried in the graveyard there is Lord Byron.
  Re the great grave up on the hill - it's not Byron. His daughter, Allegra is buried there, but the Byron connection is the fenced off grave looking out over the view already described. The tomb's flat and about 4ft high - Byron used to lie on it and look out over the countryside when he was a schoolboy. He wrote a poem about it "Spot of my youth.." (NOT referring to his acne). It's fenced off now to stop all the Byron fans wearing it down trying to do the same. But it's still pretty fab up there.
• Harrow and Wealdstone BR station was the scene of one of the worst railway crashes ever.
• Harrow Hill is the highest spot in Middlesex. Apparantly, if you draw a straight line from Harrow Hill eastwards, there's nothing as high until you get to the Urals.

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Last updated: 2007-07-09