The Metropolitan railway station is five minutes walk from our house. There
is a frequent train service which enables one to be inside any West End theatre
just three-quarters of an hour after leaving the house (it is prudent to allow
an hour for this journey). London has an extraordinary variety of museums, art
galleries, theatres, concert halls, clubs and happenings, famous buildings and
historic sites - all of which are convenient to visit, thanks to the
Metropolitan railway.
Harrow is a small town with the usual shopping Malls and retail outlets, Tesco,
Marks and Spencer, BHS, etc and there are old-England shopping experiences in
the quaint Chiltern towns such as Amersham, the Chalfonts, Rickmondsworth and
many more about thirty minutes drive to the north and west with many pleasant
hostelries offering rural atmosphere and good,
reasonably priced food. In Harrow you can eat Indian, Chinese, Thai, Italian,
French, Spanish within ½ mile. Restaurant meals are smaller and more expensive
than in most countries, typically £30/£40 for two, with wine, but food is cheap
in the very competitive, ever-open super-markets.
The house is in a very quiet, safe street of similar period properties with some
small flats here and there. Five minutes steep uphill walk takes you to the
heart of Harrow-on-the-Hill, dominated by the School, once attended unhappily by
Winston Churchill and Anthony Trollop, and more enthusiastically by Lord Byron,
the late King Hussein of Jordan and many Prime Ministers. The school provides
some miles of green for strolling.
To go further afield is not difficult from Harrow.
M1 9 miles
Scotland, a hard day's drive; Lake District seven hours.
M40 3 miles
Wales 5 hours; the West Country 4 hours; Oxford 1 hour; Stratford-on-Avon and
Warwick 2 hours
M25 5 miles All of the beauty of Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
Brighton 1 ½ hours; Channel ports 3 hours, ferry to France...better to go by
Eurostar from Waterloo.
This is one of the few houses in London which has no aircraft noise but can
be reached from Heathrow by public service. Double-decker bus 140, 50 minutes
slow crawl through dull suburbs at a cost of 80p, then 5 minutes level walk
home.
Within our street is a Catholic Church. There is also a synagogue a brief walk
away. The nearest Anglican church is a very steep 200 yard walk at the top of
the Hill, this church is known to have existed in 1094, Thomas A Becket called
into the church in1170 on his fateful way to Canterbury Cathedral. There are
also Baptist, Methodist churches quite close.
A map that shows the exact position of our house can be seen at...
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?X=515125&Y=187810&arrow=Y