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Harrow, London
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harrow is the principal town in the London Borough of Harrow. It is a suburb situated 10.2 miles (16.4 km) west northwest of Charing Cross. It is one of ten major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan.
Harrow is widely known for Harrow School, attended by Winston Churchill and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, however Harrow County School also had a tradition of noted staff and pupils, e.g. Sir Paul Nurse, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Michael Portillo, Clive Anderson and Geoffrey Perkins. Harrow is home to a large University of Westminster campus near Northwick Park Hospital (although both these landmarks actually lie within the London Borough of Brent).
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Its name came from Anglo-Saxon hearg = "(heathen) temple", which was probably on the hill of Harrow.[citation needed]
Harrow features a moderately large shopping area in the town centre. The main shopping district is located near Harrow-on-the-Hill tube station and Harrow Bus Station, and has two shopping centres (both unsightly and over-scale). The St. Ann's Shopping Centre (formerly the site of Heathfield High School for Girls), opened by Princess Diana in 1987, is the older of the two and contains an extensive food court. St. George's opened by Catherine Zeta Jones is a smaller mall, but features a gym and a 9-screen vue cinema. Complementing the shopping centres are a number of high street shops and a large Debenham's department store. Harrow is typical of an unfortunate trend that has blighted many town centres since the 1970s and especially in recent years: ugly, banal and unsympathetic town planning with a heavy retail bias. This is most evident in Harrow where many local and individual shops have been replaced by large chains or low quality units.
Of concern is that out of the thirty-two London boroughs (excluding Westminster) Harrow is one of the worst performing according to a 2007 survey. In spite of Harrow's remote and innocuous suburban location being more than ten miles from the West End, it shares many of the social and economic problems associated with more impoverished inner-city areas such as Hackney or Tower Hamlets.
Districts of Harrow:
- Harrow on the Hill
- North Harrow
- South Harrow
- West Harrow
- Harrow Weald
- Hatch End
- Kenton
- Pinner
- Stanmore
- Wealdstone
The area has excellent public transport links and is served by the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground and also by the National Rail services of Chiltern Railways and Silverlink. Stations in the area are:
- Harrow-on-the-Hill station (Metropolitan Line & Chiltern Railways)
- Harrow and Wealdstone station (Bakerloo Line & Silverlink)
- North Harrow tube station (Metropolitan Line)
- Northolt Park railway station (Chiltern Railways)
- West Harrow tube station (Metropolitan Line)
- South Harrow tube station (Piccadilly Line)
- Sudbury Hill tube station (Piccadilly Line)
- Rayners Lane tube station (Metropolitan Line & Piccadilly Line)
Harrow is near to the A40/M40, M25 and the M1 motorways.
The town centre also boasts a major bus station adjacent to Harrow-on-the-Hill station that serves as an important hub for buses in the area. Many routes to North and West London pass through this station. Notable routes serving Harrow include:
- The 140 route starting and terminating at Harrow Weald and Heathrow Airport
- The 182 route starting and terminating at Harrow Weald and Brent Cross
- The 183 route starting and terminating at Pinner and Golders Green Bus Station
- The N18 nightbus which starts at Trafalgar Square and terminates at Harrow Weald Bus Station
- The 258 route starting and terminating at Watford Junction and South Harrow Station
- The 114 route starting and terminating at Ruislip Station and Mill Hill.
Harrow is twinned with:
- Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
- Lord Byron, poet
- Sir Elton John, musician
- Sir Roger Bannister, famous runner and neurologist
- Mrs Beeton, the first celebrity cook, lived in Hatch End
- Claire Rayner, journalist
- Pam St. Clement, actress who plays Pat Evans in EastEnders
- Charlie Watts, drummer with The Rolling Stones attended Harrow Art College
- Simon Le Bon, musician, brought up in North Harrow
- Courtney Pine, jazz musician
- Peter Andre, singer and husband of Jordan
- Tom Fletcher, singer/guitarist with McFly born in Harrow
- Oswald Mosley, Local MP (1920's)
- Lord Sutch, eccentric politician and musician
- Brian Cookman, musician, artist and Tai-Chi expert
- Gavin Fisher, engineer, former chief designer for the Williams F1 team
- Linsey Dawn McKenzie, model
- Ian Dury, Musician, of Ian Dury and the Blockheads, with the hit single "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"
- Agha Hasan Abedi, Founder of BCCI bank, at one point the sixth largest bank in the world.
- Harrow Times newspaper
- Harrow College website
- St Dominic's Sixth Form College Website
- Harrow Agenda 21 Environmental Forum
- Harrow and Wembley Outdoor Group
- Map and aerial photo of Harrow, London from Multimap.com
- Other map and aerial photo sources
- Eggmeg Online Calendar listing events in Harrow Borough
- Harrow County School allumnus site
- Harrow Music Service
- Harrow Young Musicians