|
When people hear the name 'Harrow', they think “that is where the famous school is”, and that is all there is to Harrow. But how wrong they are, because the history of Harrow dates back to before 1500 BC. The Neolithic race are thought to have been the first people to live in the district because stone implements have been found in Pinner, Hayes and Uxbridge, although none in Harrow itself.
The name of Harrow-on-the Hill was in 767 called Hergal, and by the year 1259 it was Harewe and in 1535 it was Harewe-on-the-Hill.
All around Harrow relics of the Romans, Saxons, and other early invaders have been found, but none in Harrow. The Domesday book refers a lot to Harrow, because Lanfranc was the Lord of Harrow. St. Mary's Church on the Hill was built by Lanfranc, because there had been no church in Harrow for 200 years, even though Harrow itself had been the residence of Bishops. The church was consecrated by St. Anselm. For hundreds of years the Manor House at Harrow had been lived in by Archbishops, until Cranmer in 1545 surrendered the Manor to Henry VIII.
In 1837 the London and Birmingham Railway opened a station at Wealdstone, well over a mile from the church. A settlement then grew around it and along the road through Greenhill. The Metropolitan Railway station of Harrow-on-the-Hill was opened in 1880 and in the next twenty years the population was more than doubled, most of the new settlement lying between the two stations.
Harrow has three connections with Nelson. One of them is that Father Hardy, the re-founder of the Catholic Church in Harrow in 1873, was a descendant of Captain Hardy in whose arms the great Admiral died after the Battle of Trafalgar.
Now to modern Harrow, which is the largest and most populous district in Middlesex, extending over 12,500 acres from the north edge of Wembley to the Hertfordshire border and containing almost a quarter of a million inhabitants.
The greatest day in the history of Harrow was the 4th May, 1954 when Harrow became a Borough.
|
