HIGHGATE, HORNSEY, HENDON, AND HARROW
[Sidenote: Highgate]
Perched on a hill that is twenty-five feet higher than the loftiest
point of Hampstead Heath, Highgate originally commanded as fine a
prospect as it, but unfortunately many of the best points of view are
now built over, though from the terrace behind the church, and parts of
the cemetery, some idea can still be obtained of the beautiful scene
that was the delight of Hogarth and of Morland, of Coleridge and
Wordsworth, and many other artists and poets who, at one time or
another, resided on the hill.
The name of Highgate is generally supposed to be derived from the
Tollgate that used to stand at the entrance to the Bishop of London's
park, a two-storied house of red brick, built over an archway that was
pulled down in 1769, and to which there are many references in the
ancient records of Middlesex. Norden, for instance, in the _Speculum
Britanniæ_ bearing date 1593, says: 'Highgate, a hill, over which is a
passage, and at the top of the same hill is a gate through which all
manner of passengers have their waie; the place taketh the name of this
highgate on the hill.... When the {26} waie was turned over the saide
hill to leade through the parke of the Bishop of London, there was in
regard thereof a toll raised upon such as passed that waie by carriage.'
The Gate House Inn, though considerably modified, still remains to
preserve the memory of the building at which the tolls were levied, and
in it the quaint ceremony of swearing on the horns was practised until
quite late in the nineteenth century. On the subject of this ceremony
there has been of late years much learned controversy, but the most
plausible explanation of its origin appears to be that the horns--after
which, by the way, so many London inns are named--on which the oath was
sworn, were merely the symbol of the gatekeeper's right to exact toll
from the drovers of the sheep or cattle who passed beneath the archway.
The conversion of the custom into an apparently unmeaning farce was
probably the result of a harmless frolic indulged in by some gay young
travellers that, to use a slang expression, 'took on' with the public,
and was gradually expanded into the complex burlesque purporting to
give the initiated, by virtue of the oath on the horns, the freedom of
Highgate. The ceremony has often been described, and is referred to in
the much quoted lines of Byron, who, with a party of friends, once took
the oath:--
'Many to the steep hill of Highgate hie,
Ask ye Boeotian shades the reason why:
'Tis to the worship of the solemn horn,
Grasp'd in the holy hand of mystery,
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath with draught and dance till morn.'
{27}
Until about 1850 it was customary at the inn to stop every stage-coach
that passed, and from its passengers select five to whom to administer
the oath. These five were led into the principal room, the horns,
mounted on a long pole, were produced, and in the presence of a number
of witnesses the neophytes were compelled to listen uncovered to the
following absurd speech from the landlord:--
'Take notice what I now say ... you must acknowledge me to be your
adopted father. I must acknowledge you to be my adopted son. If you
will not call me father, you forfeit a bottle of wine. If I do not
call you son, I forfeit the same. And now, my good son, if you are
travelling through this village of Highgate and you have no money in
your pocket, go, call for a bottle of wine at any house you may think
proper to enter, and book it to your father's score. If you have any
friends with you, you may treat them as well, but if you have any money
of your own you must pay for it yourself, for you must not say you have
no money when you have.... You must not eat brown bread when you can
get white, unless you like brown the best.... You must not kiss the
maid while you can kiss the mistress, unless you like the maid best,
but sooner than lose a good chance you may kiss them both. And now, my
good son, I wish you a safe journey through Highgate and this life. I
charge you, my good son, that if you know any in this company who have
not taken this oath, you must cause them to take it or make each of
them forfeit a bottle of wine.... So now, my son, God bless you; kiss
the {28} horns or a pretty girl if you see one here, whichever you like
best, and so be free of Highgate.'
The horns or the girl duly kissed as the case might be, and the oath
administered, other absurd speeches were made, the farce often ending
in somewhat rowdy merriment. Long after the custom was discontinued,
too, the crier of Highgate kept a wig and gown in readiness to be
donned by any one desirous of obtaining the freedom of Highgate, and
the expression 'he has taken the oath' came as time went on to signify
he knows how to look after his own interests. In the Gate-House Inn a
huge pair of mounted horns is still preserved, and a few years ago a
party of enthusiastic local antiquarians amused themselves by going
through the ancient farce according to the best authenticated
traditions, but whether any of the newly made freemen availed
themselves of the privilege of kissing mistress or maid is not recorded.
One of the earliest historical references to Highgate is in the grant
made by Edward III. in 1363 to a certain William Phelippe, 'as a reward
for his care of the highway between Highgate and Smithfelde, of the
privelege of taking customs of all persons using the road for
merchandize,' and it has been suggested that this Phelippe may have
been one and the same with the 'nameless hermit' who preceded the holy
man William Litchfield, to whom in 1386 the Bishop of London gave, to
quote his own words, 'the office of the custody of our chapel of
Highgate beside our Park of Hareng, and of the house to the same chapel
annexed.' This chapel and hermitage were successively occupied by
several recluses, the {29} last of whom is supposed to have been a
certain William Foote, on whom they were conferred in 1531. The
dwelling-house was given in 1577, by Queen Elizabeth, to a favourite
_protégé_ of hers named John Farnehame, whose lease was later
transferred to the founder of the 'Publique and Free Grammar School of
Highgate,' Sir Roger Cholmeley, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench
under Edward VI., who fell into disgrace with Queen Mary, and after
suffering imprisonment for some years, lived in great retirement at
Hornsey. Sir Roger obtained a licence to build a school, and Bishop
Grindal gave him the old Hermitage Chapel, with two acres of land,
under certain conditions, one being that the people of Highgate as well
as the pupils should have the use of the chapel. It was to serve, in
fact, as a kind of chapel of ease to Hornsey, an incidental proof that
there were already at the time of the agreement a number of inhabitants
in the hamlet of the Highgate. Sir Roger Cholmeley died before the
projected work was begun, but his wishes were carefully carried out by
his trustees, and the first stone of the institution, which was to have
such a long career of usefulness, was laid in 1576.
It does not appear quite clear whether the old Hermitage Chapel was
pulled down to give place to a new one, or enlarged to meet the needs
of the increased congregation, but in any case the school chapel was
the only place of worship in Highgate until 1834, when the parish was
separated from Hornsey, and the fine Gothic church of St Michael, the
lofty spire of which is a landmark for many miles {30} round, was
erected. Five years later the cemetery, that is still the most
beautiful suburb of the dead near London, was consecrated, and since
then many famous men and women have been buried in it, including the
philosopher and chemist Michael Faraday; the eloquent writer Henry
Crabb Robinson; the lawyers Judge Payne and Lord Lyndhurst; the artists
John James Chalon, Sir William Ross, and John George Pinwell; the
poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti; the theologian Frederick Maurice;
the novelists George Eliot and Mrs. Henry Ward; the pugilist Tom
Sayers; and the no less celebrated cricketer John Lillywhite.
For many years the land round the old school chapel had served as a
cemetery, and in it was buried in 1534 the poet Samuel Coleridge, who
had lived for many years in Highgate, and when a year later the old
school chapel was replaced by the present one, a beautiful Gothic
building designed by Cockerell, it was wisely decided to erect the
latter over the tomb, that is now enclosed in a crypt approached by a
flight of steps from the western side of the building. The new
schoolhouse, classrooms, etc., completed in 1869, that replace those
that had been in use for some four centuries, and in which many men of
note were educated, including Nicolas Rowe the dramatist, harmonise
well with the chapel, and the institution bids fair long to maintain in
the future the reputation it won in the past.
[Illustration: A BIT OF OLD HIGHGATE]
Highgate no doubt owed its early prosperity and rapid growth during the
last hundred and fifty years to its situation at the junction of the
two main roads {31} from London that meet in the High Street, not far
from the old village green, in the midst of which there used to be a
pond, now filled in and planted with trees, round about which the
village lads and lasses were wont to dance, and the elder residents to
gather to gossip of a summer evening. Before the Bishop of London
consented in 1386 to allow a road to be made through his park, Highgate
could only be reached by a narrow lane, by way of Crouch End, Muswell
Hill, and Friern Barnet, but the new thoroughfare very quickly became
the chief highway to the north, and is associated with many noteworthy
events and royal progresses. It remained, indeed, without a rival
until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when an Act of
Parliament was passed sanctioning a licensed company to make a way from
the foot of Highgate Hill to join the main road, a principal feature of
which was the piercing of a tunnel seven hundred and sixty-five feet
long by twenty-four wide and nineteen high, which, alas, was but poorly
engineered, for it fell in with a great crash before it was opened to
traffic. The tunnel was then replaced by the present fine archway,
spanning the road, that was completed in 1813, and for the use of which
a toll was levied until 1876, when it was finally remitted.
Unfortunately the once beautiful village of Highgate has of late years
been transformed into a somewhat prosaic suburb, but a few relics
remain to bear witness to more picturesque days gone by. At the foot
of the ascent, a little above the Archway Tavern, opposite the Dick
Whittington public-house, {32} is a railed-in stone supposed to occupy
the exact site of the one on which the penniless boy, the future Sir
Richard Whittington, rested, weary and worn from his long tramp on
foot, and heard the bells ring out: 'Turn again, Whittington, thrice
Lord Mayor of London Town.'
Within sight of this stone are the Whittington Almshouses, that
represent those of the ancient foundation of Sir Richard in Paternoster
Row, and were built in 1822 by the Mercers Company, as trustees of the
Lord Mayor's will made in 1421, bequeathing the funds for erecting and
endowing a college of priests and choristers, and building homes for
thirteen poor men. With their picturesque chapel and general air of
comfort, it must be owned that they contrast favourably with the
ancient almshouses not far off in Southwood Lane, that were founded in
1658 by Sir John Wollaston, and added to seventy years later by Edward
Pauncefoot.
Within the grounds of Waterlow Park, part of which was given to the
public by Sir Sydney Waterlow, is the famous Lauderdale House, built
about 1650, that was long the residence of the infamous Viceroy of
Scotland under Charles II., the Duke of Lauderdale, who was probably
often visited in it by his venial tool, Archbishop Sharp. To
Lauderdale House the dissipated king brought the merry-hearted Nell
Gwynn, and it was here that she is said to have forced her royal lover
to acknowledge himself to be the father of her boy, the future Duke of
St. Albans, by threatening to drop the child out of the window if he
refused to do so.
{33}
Quite close to Lauderdale House, in a cottage that was pulled down in
1869, lived the poet-patriot Andrew Marvell, who was the friend of
Milton and the bitter enemy of his fair neighbour Nell Gwynn, who tried
in vain to soften his animosity. Opposite to Marvell's cottage, in
Cromwell House, now a branch of the Ormond Street Children's Hospital,
resided General Ireton and his wife Bridget, the daughter of the
Protector; and a little higher up, in what is now called the Bank, was
Arundel House, the seat of the Earls of Arundel, supposed to have been
at one time the residence of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, and to have been
visited by Queen Elizabeth in 1589 and James I. in 1604. It is,
however, more famous as having been the death-place of Francis Bacon,
who expired in it in 1626, his end having been hastened, it is
popularly believed, through an experiment he tried on his way from
London with a view to finding out whether flesh could be preserved in
snow.
The courageous William Prynne, who was so cruelly maltreated on 30th
June 1637, and his fellow-sufferers for conscience' sake, Dr. Bastwick
and the Rev. Henry Burton, were often at Highgate; to the house of Sir
Thomas Abney, Dr. Watts came more than once; and the famous Jacobite
prelate, Bishop Atterbury, was the frequent guest of his brother Dr.
Atterbury, when the latter was minister of Highgate chapel. In a house
on the Green lived and died Dr. Henry Sacheverel, the leader of the
Tory party in the struggle of 1709, and the intimate friend of Addison.
Sir Richard Baker, author of the _Chronicles of England_, who died in
the Fleet Prison in great {34} poverty in 1645, wrote much of his
valuable work in a house on the Hill. The famous Calvinistic
Methodist, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, who chose the eloquent
preacher Whitefield as one of her favourite chaplains, resided for some
time in Highgate; and Church House on the Green was long the home of
Sir John Hawkins, the author of the _Standard History of Music_, who
used to drive to London every day in a coach and four.
Hogarth, whilst he was apprentice to a silversmith, was fond of going
to the still standing but much altered Flask Inn, outside which the
Whitsun morris-dancers used to foot it merrily for the 'honour of
Holloway,' as described in the popular comedy _Jack Dunn's
Entertainment_, first published in 1601. The great painter is said to
have delighted in making sketches of the frequenters of the bar at the
Flask Inn, especially of the tipsy brawlers, whose distorted grimaces
he hit off to the life. At another well-known hostelry, the Bull Inn,
on the Great North Road, looking down upon Finchley, George Morland, an
artist of a very different type to Hogarth, was a familiar figure, for
he found plenty of congenial subjects near by, and was on friendly
terms with the drivers of all the stage-coaches that halted at the
tavern. He used, it is said, to settle his score with mine host with
sketches which, if they could now be traced, would be worth as many
hundreds of pounds as shillings they then represented.
Occupying a commanding position on the west of the Green was the
stately mansion Dorchester {35} House, the seat of Henry, Marquis of
Dorchester, from whom it was purchased in the reign of Charles II. by
the eccentric philanthropist William Blake, who turned it into a school
that ceased to exist in 1688. The mansion, after various vicissitudes,
was pulled down; and in one of the houses, now No. 3 The Grove, that
were built on its site, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived as the
paying-guest of a surgeon named Gilman for nineteen years. There he
was often visited by Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Leigh Hunt, Charles
Lamb, Henry Crabb Robinson, Edward Irving, Mr. and Mrs. Cowden
Clarke--the latter of whom has eloquently described her stay with the
poet in her charming book, _My Long Life_--and Thomas Carlyle, who
dwelt enthusiastically on the glorious view from the windows of the
house, that is still, by the way, much what it was in Coleridge's time.
The parish church of Highgate, in which there is a tablet with a long
inscription to the memory of Coleridge, and part of the cemetery occupy
the site of the mansion-house built in 1694 by Sir William Ashurst,
then Lord Mayor of London, and the villas of the present Fitzroy Park
replace a fine old house erected in 1780 by Lord Southampton, and named
after him. In one of the new houses on this beautiful estate lived the
well-known sanitary reformer Dr. Southwood Smith, and near to the Park
is Dufferin Lodge, the seat of Lord Dufferin, that was the maiden home
of the eloquent writer, the Honourable Mrs. Norton, grand-daughter of
Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
{36}
In a little house known as the Hermitage, on West Hill, where a modern
terrace now stands, and opposite to which there used to be an ash-tree
popularly supposed to have been planted by Nelson when he was a boy,
dwelt the notorious gambler Sir Wallis Porter, who was often joined
there by the Prince Regent; and it was in it that the forger Henry
Fauntleroy is said to have long lain hidden from the officers of the
law in search of him. In Millfield Lane, and in the charming little
Ivy Cottage, now enlarged and known as Brookfield House, the famous
comedian, Charles Mathews, dwelt for many years. Millfield Cottage,
next door to it, was for a time a favourite retreat of John Ruskin, and
in the same lane, as related by Leigh Hunt in his _Lord Byron and his
Contemporaries_, John Keats presented his brother poet with a volume of
his poems, the first of many generous gifts.
West Hill, Highgate, is associated with several interesting memories.
It was on it that Queen Victoria, in the year after her accession, was
saved from what might have been a very serious accident by the landlord
of the neighbouring Fox and Crown Inn, who arrested the frightened
horses of the royal carriage, at the risk of his own life, as they were
dashing down the steep descent. In West Hill Lodge the poets William
and Mary Howitt lived and worked for several years, and not far from
their old home is Holly Lodge, once the residence of the Duchess of St.
Albans, and long the home of the generous and hospitable Baroness
Burdett-Coutts, a worthy successor of her aristocratic predecessor, who
{37} built in Swain's Lane hard by a group of model cottages known as
Holly Village.
In the picturesque cottage opposite to the chief entrance to the
grounds of Holly Lodge the philanthropist Judge Payne died in 1870;
David Williams, founder of the Royal Literary Fund, and Dr. Rochemond
Barbauld, husband of the authoress, were at different times ministers
of the Presbyterian chapel in Southwood Lane; and on the site of the
once notorious Black Dog Tavern, on the hill going down to Holloway,
are the chapel and home of the Passionist Fathers, from which, instead
of the ribald songs of drunken revellers, perpetual prayers now go up
for the restoration of England to the mother church of Rome.
[Sidenote: Hornsey]
Little now remains of the beautiful forests which were for many
centuries one of the most distinctive characteristics of the northern
heights of London, though there are still some unenclosed portions of
the vast estate that belonged to the Bishop of London, such as Highgate
and Caen Woods, where it is possible to forget for a time the near
neighbourhood of the ever-growing towns of Hampstead and Highgate.
Equally rapid has been the transformation of the two mother parishes of
Hendon and of Hornsey, that from isolated picturesque villages have
grown into suburbs of the great metropolis. The latter especially
retains scarcely anything to recall the days when it was a favourite
summer retreat of the Bishop of London, who had a palace in the park of
Haringay, as it was called, until the time of Elizabeth, on Lodge Hill,
on the outskirts of {38} what later became the property of Lord
Mansfield. The little forest hamlet of Haringay, in which the bishop's
retainers used to live, was probably situated in the heart of the wood,
now replaced by Finsbury Park, and its one inn, pulled down so recently
as 1866, became in course of time first a noted tea-house, and later a
place of resort of the aristocracy, who used to practise
pigeon-shooting in its garden.
With Hornsey Park are associated many interesting historic memories.
It was, for instance, in it that the discontented nobles used to meet
to concert measures against the hated favourite of Richard II., Robert
de Vere, Earl of Oxford. In its palace the Duchess of Gloucester and
her confederates, the astrologer Richard Bolingbroke and the Rev. Canon
Southwell, concocted the plot against the life of Henry VI., and it was
there that the last-named was accused of invoking at the celebration of
mass the blessing of God on the evil enterprise, an incident turned to
account by Shakespeare in his play of _Henry VI_. Through Hornsey and
Highgate rode Richard III. when still Duke of Gloucester, after the
sudden death of Edward IV., accompanied by the doomed boy-king Edward
V., and it was in the outskirts of the park that the royal procession
was met by the mayor and corporation of London. Almost on the same
spot Henry VII. was later welcomed by the loyal citizens of his capital
on his way back from a successful expedition against Scotland, and
there is a tradition that after the execution at Smithfield, in 1305,
of the Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace, his dismembered remains
were {39} allowed to rest for a night, on their way north, in the
bishop's chapel.
The ivy-clad tower, bearing the arms of Bishops Savage and Warham, who
occupied the see of London, the former from 1497 to 1500, the latter
from 1500 to 1504, is all that now remains of the ancient church of
Hornsey that was founded at the end of the fifteenth century. The new
building that was skilfully added on to the tower was begun in 1832,
and is said to have been constructed of the materials of the bishop's
palace. It contains little of interest except a kneeling effigy of a
certain Francis Masters, a boy of about sixteen, and the monument to
the Rev. Dr. Atterbury, removed from Highgate Chapel on its demolition,
but in the churchyard is the tomb of the poet Samuel Rogers, who died
in London in 1855.
[Sidenote: Hendon]
Hendon, which for many centuries has enjoyed the singular privilege,
first granted in 1066, of immunity from all tolls, has retained far
more of its ancient rural character than either Highgate or Hornsey,
for in spite of the many modern villas that have of late years sprung
up within its boundaries, it is still a village in touch with the open
country. Its church, though not architecturally beautiful, is finely
situated on a lofty hill, and its picturesque, well laid out
churchyard, in which rest Nathaniel Hone the painter and Abraham
Raimbach the engraver, commands a charming and extensive view, taking
in Harrow, Edgware, Stanmore, Elstree, and Mill Hill, with the distant
heights of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.
{40}
The ancient manor of Hendon belonged at the time of the Conquest to the
abbots of Westminster, but changed hands many times between the twelfth
and eighteenth centuries. The old manor-house (replaced first by an
Elizabethan mansion and later by the present Hendon Place, built about
1850) was sometimes occupied by the ecclesiastical owners, and in it,
as the guest of the reigning abbot of Westminster, Cardinal Wolsey
rested in Holy Week 1530 on his way from Richmond to York after his
fall. In 1757 the manor-house was sold by the Earl of Powis, to whose
family it had long belonged, to the actor David Garrick, since whose
death it has changed hands more than once.
The various rivulets that unite to form the Brent take their rise in
Hendon parish, and within its bounds is the beautiful open space, three
hundred and fifty acres in extent, known as the Wyldes, a name that
probably means the lonely or the unenclosed, that was for more than
four centuries the property of Eton College, to which it was given in
1449 by the founder, Henry VI. Part of this fine estate has recently
been bought for the public and added to Hampstead Heath, and the
remainder, if the necessary funds can be collected, is to be acquired
for the formation of a garden suburb, which, if it is ever laid out
according to the present plans, will be an ideal addition to the
attractions of the northern heights of London. The ancient home farm
of the Wyldes is still standing on the edge of Hampstead Heath, but it
remains a private residence, and is not included in the scheme of
purchase. {41} Its fine barns and outhouses have been thrown into one
house, the red-tiled roofs and weather-boarded walls of which present
very much the same appearance that they did several centuries ago, and
the quaint old homestead, long known as Collin's Farm, but now renamed
the Wyldes, has long been a favourite haunt of artists and authors. In
it the painter John Linnell and his family resided for a long time,
receiving amongst their many guests Constable, Morland, and Blake; and
when they removed to London in 1827 their rooms were occupied
successively by Samuel Lever, Charles Dickens, and Birket Foster. Ford
Madox Brown, Edward Carpenter, the Russian author Stepniak, and Olive
Schreiner were often at the Wyldes; and the whole neighbourhood of
Hendon was dear to Mrs. Alfred Scott Gatty, the authoress of _Parables
from Nature_, who spent much of her girlhood at the vicarage.
Within an easy walk of Hendon, on the right bank of the Brent, is the
still picturesque village of Kingsbury, supposed to occupy the site of
one of Cæsar's camps, and to have got its name from its having been the
property of King Edward the Confessor, who gave it to the Abbey of
Westminster. The quaint little church of St. Andrew, said to be built
of Roman bricks and to retain traces of Saxon work, all now hidden in a
coating of rough cast, is set on a hill amidst venerable elm-trees
dominating the village, which contains many typical old-fashioned
cottages, and on the east is the beautiful Kingsbury Lake, or Welsh
Harp, an artificial reservoir some three hundred and fifty acres in
extent, formed on {42} the eastern course of the Brent as a source of
supply for the Regent's Park Locks, a most successful piece of
engineering work, presenting the appearance of a natural sheet of
water, that is a favourite haunt of a great variety of water-fowl, and
is well stocked with fish. Unfortunately, the opening of the Welsh
Harp racecourse and station, both named after an ancient inn hard by,
has done much to destroy the peaceful seclusion of the beautiful
district of Kingsbury, but country lanes still lead from it in many
directions, in one of which, running eastward towards Edgware Road, is
the farmhouse called High or Hyde House, in which Oliver Goldsmith
lived for some time, calling his temporary home the Shoemakers'
Paradise, because of a tradition that it was built by a votary of St.
Crispin, the patron saint of workers in leather. There many choice
spirits visited the poet, and Boswell relates that he once called at
the Shoemakers' Paradise, and Goldsmith being out at the time, he
nevertheless, 'having a curiosity to see his apartments, went in and
found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the walls
with a black lead pencil,' evidently notes for the _History of Animated
Nature_.
[Illustration: HARROW ON THE HILL]
Two miles north of Hendon, with which it is connected by a beautiful
lane leading through fields, is the village of Mill Hill, the church of
which, a somewhat commonplace structure, was founded in 1829 by the
philanthropist William Wilberforce. Opposite to it is the
Congregationalist College, that occupies the site of the beautiful
Botanic Garden laid out by the well-known botanist Peter Collinson, the
{43} friend and fellow-worker of Linnæus, who was often with him at
Mill Hill; and not far off is St. Joseph's College of the Sacred Heart,
with a fine chapel and campanile, the latter surmounted by a statue of
the patron saint, that is a landmark for many miles round.
[Sidenote: Harrow]
From the loftier Highwood Hill, close to Mill Hill, a noble view is
obtained of the beautiful Harrow Weald, that stretches away in a
north-westerly direction to Harrow-on-the-Hill, and is dotted with
picturesque villages and hamlets, some of which are still unspoiled by
the invasion of the builder. The Hill, crowned by the parish church
and famous school of Harrow, rises up abruptly from an undulating
plain, and forms a conspicuous feature of the whole neighbourhood, for
it is visible from many widely separated points of the northern,
southern, and south-western suburbs of London. The name of Harrow,
that is a modern adaptation of the Herges of Doomsday Book, is
differently interpreted by scholars, some being of opinion that it
signifies the church, others the military camp on the hill. In any
case, the manor was held soon after the Conquest by Archbishop
Lanfranc, and remained in the possession of his successors until 1543,
when Archbishop Cranmer exchanged it with Henry VIII. for other
property. Three years later it was given to Sir Edward, afterwards
Lord, North, and after changing hands several times, it passed to the
Rushout family, to whose present representative it now belongs.
The exact site of the ancient manor-house of {44} Harrow is not known,
for its ecclesiastical owners early removed to a mansion at Haggeston,
now Headstone, near Pinner, supposed to have been close to the present
manor farm. However that may be, it seems certain that in 1170, soon
after his return home from France, the great Archbishop Thomas à Becket
spent several days at Harrow-on-the-Hill, for the story goes that he
was on that occasion so grievously insulted by the rector of the
parish, the Rev. Nizel de Sackville, that he revenged himself by
excommunicating him from the altar of Canterbury Cathedral on the
following Christmas Day, just four days before his own assassination in
the same building. The parish church of Harrow was built by Archbishop
Lanfranc, who died just before its consecration, a ceremony that was
performed by his successor, the greatly venerated St. Anselm, who, it
is related, was interrupted during the service by two canons sent by
the Bishop of London to contest his right to officiate on the occasion.
The sacred oil, it is said, was carried off by the emissaries, so that
the service could not proceed, and the point at issue was later
submitted to St. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, the sole remaining Saxon
prelate of England, who decided in favour of St. Anselm, since which
time the special rights at Harrow of the Archbishop of Canterbury have
never again been called in question.
[Illustration: "BYRON'S TOMB," HARROW]
All that now remains of the building associated with Archbishop
Lanfranc and St. Anselm is the lower portion of the tower, the western
gateway, which has well-preserved Norman pillars, and a finely {45}
sculptured lintel. The massive stone font is, however, probably the
very one in which baptisms took place in the eleventh century. The
main body of the present church--that was recently well restored and
enlarged under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott--dates from the
fifteenth century. Its most noteworthy features are the lead-encased
wooden spire, the stone porch with the priest's chamber above it, and
the open timber roof with figures of angels playing on musical
instruments on the corbels. In the church are several interesting
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth century brasses, and in the
churchyard is a much defaced ancient tombstone known as Byron's Tomb,
on which the poet, who was educated at Harrow, was fond of resting, and
to which he referred in an often-quoted letter to his publisher, Mr.
John Murray, dated May 26, 1822, and also in the well-known lines--
'Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd,
As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay;
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd,
To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray.'
The view from Byron's Tomb, now enclosed within railings, from the
terrace outside the churchyard, the school buildings, and other points
of vantage on the Hill, is not perhaps quite so inspiring as that from
Hampstead Heath immortalised by Constable, but there is a quiet charm
about it, and it is very extensive, embracing parts of Surrey,
Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire, with Windsor Castle, the Crystal
Palace, and Leith Hill Tower as its most conspicuous features.
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The chief interest of Harrow is, of course, the famous school, that
ranks second only to Eton amongst the great centres of education in
England, and is intimately associated with the memory of many
distinguished men, including amongst the headmasters Dr. Vaughan, who
ruled from 1844 to 1859, and his successor Dr. Butler, who held office
until 1885; while amongst the students were the intrepid traveller
James Bruce, the Oriental Sir William Jones, the accomplished scholar
Dr. Samuel Parr, Admiral Lord Rodney, the witty writer Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, the novelist Theodore Hook, the statesmen Sir Robert Peel,
Lord Ripon, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, and Sir Spencer Perceval,
Cardinal Manning, Archbishop Trench, the philanthropist Lord
Shaftesbury, and, most celebrated of them all, the poet Lord Byron.
Founded in 1571 by John Lyon, a yeoman of the hamlet of Preston, to
whom there is a fine brass in Harrow Church, the school had in it from
the first the elements of growth, and its interests were watched over
with untiring care for twenty years by its generous originator. No
detail was too trivial for his consideration, and the statutes laid
down by him were eminently practicable yet sufficiently elastic to
allow of future development, though their simple-hearted author
certainly never dreamt of what that development was to be. The
salaries of the masters, the books to be used, were all specified; and
it is a noteworthy fact that very special stress was laid on the
exercise of shooting, all parents being bound to give their boys
'bowstrings, shafts, {47} and braces,' that they might practise
archery, which at that time represented what rifle-shooting does now.
To arouse the ambition of the students, a prize of a silver arrow was
given every year to the best marksman out of six or twelve carefully
selected competitors, and it was not until 1771 that the ancient custom
was discontinued by the then headmaster, Dr. Heath, on account, he
said, of the rowdy crowds who used to flock from London to witness the
contests, and the serious interruption it caused in the routine of the
school work. The butts at which the students, in picturesque costumes
of white and green, used to shoot, and the little hill on which they
stood, are gone, their place being taken by modern houses; but the
silver arrow made for the competition of 1772 is preserved in the
school library, a silent witness to John Lyon's recognition of the
fact, on which Lord Roberts and other enlightened patriots are now
laying such stress, that every boy should learn how to aid in the
defence of his native country.
The first endowment of Harrow School was made in 1575, when Lyon
bequeathed to the governors certain lands at Harrow and Preston; but it
was not until 1615, twenty years after his death, that his instructions
were carried out for the building of a 'large and convenient
schoolhouse, three stories high, with a chimney in it, and meet and
convenient roomes for the schoolmaster and usher to dwell in, and a
cellar under the said roomes to lay in wood and coales ... divided into
three several roomes, one for ye master, the second for ye usher, and
the {48} third for ye schollers.' Until 1650 this house met all the
requirements of the institution, the students boarding, as they do now,
in outlying houses; and the big class-room, known for many generations
as the Fourth Form Room, with the three small apartments above it and
the attic called the Cockloft, still remain much what they were four
hundred years ago, and are venerated by all Harrovians as the most
ancient portion of their beloved school. The rest of the present
buildings are all modern; a new wing with a speech-room, class-rooms,
and a library, were added in 1819, and in 1877 it was in its turn
supplemented by yet another speech-room. The chapel now in use
replaces two earlier ones, and was built in 1857, after the designs of
Sir Gilbert Scott. The Vaughan library, commemorating the headmaster
after whom it is named, was opened in 1863; and the beautiful Museum
buildings, that are perhaps the most satisfactory from an æsthetic
point of view of the recent erections, were completed in 1886.
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