Harrow-on-the-Hill

LilyRose

Hi guys,

Haven't posted much before so hopefully this is the right place for my question!

I'm advising a friend of mine (a newly-qualified teacher) on where to live in Greater London. He has a couple of interviews for schools in north London, but he wants a bit of fresh air and space for his cats, and is happy to live further out.

Now, I initially advised him to research the Hertfordshire periphery. I've heard places like Bushey and Pinner are nice. Since doing my own scouting, I stumbled across some rental properties in Harrow-on-the-Hill. The area around the famous school looks very pretty, and the transport links are good.

For anyone who knows Harrow-on-the-Hill, my question is: what's the catch?! Don't get me wrong, I know it's expensive, but not, say, in comparison to similarly faraway corners of London i.e. Richmond, or Totteridge.

From a distance, the area seems to represent good value, but am I missing something?

Without knowing the facts, I can think of 2 reasons for Harrow-on-the-Hill's relative affordability:

1. The neighbouring areas are less fashionable than those adjoining Richmond etc.
2. The distance to central London via road i.e. you'd struggle to get a taxi home.

I'd like to hear anyone's experience of the area and whether it represents value. My friend essentially wants a genteel, latte-quaffing lifestyle with his head in the clouds.

Kind regards

GDB2222

"My friend essentially wants a genteel, latte-quaffing lifestyle with his head in the clouds."

He'd best stay on the hill then, because the area of Harrow at the bottom of the hill is pretty naff.

silvercar

Transport links are key. If he isn't going to have a car it needs to be somewhere within an easy commute of the school. Generally tube/ overground train links in and out are fine, the problem is when you try to move across without travelling inwards. Better to narrow down the school options first.

Parts of Harrow are very nice and parts are very not nice.

Hertfordshire is nice

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

"My friend essentially wants a genteel, latte-quaffing lifestyle with his head in the clouds."

Be better off in Hampstead!

ColU_FC

LilyRose wrote: »

Hi guys,

Haven't posted much before so hopefully this is the right place for my question!

I'm advising a friend of mine (a newly-qualified teacher) on where to live in Greater London. He has a couple of interviews for schools in north London, but he wants a bit of fresh air and space for his cats, and is happy to live further out.

Now, I initially advised him to research the Hertfordshire periphery. I've heard places like Bushey and Pinner are nice. Since doing my own scouting, I stumbled across some rental properties in Harrow-on-the-Hill. The area around the famous school looks very pretty, and the transport links are good.

For anyone who knows Harrow-on-the-Hill, my question is: what's the catch?! Don't get me wrong, I know it's expensive, but not, say, in comparison to similarly faraway corners of London i.e. Richmond, or Totteridge.

From a distance, the area seems to represent good value, but am I missing something?

Without knowing the facts, I can think of 2 reasons for Harrow-on-the-Hill's relative affordability:

1. The neighbouring areas are less fashionable than those adjoining Richmond etc.
2. The distance to central London via road i.e. you'd struggle to get a taxi home.

I'd like to hear anyone's experience of the area and whether it represents value. My friend essentially wants a genteel, latte-quaffing lifestyle with his head in the clouds.

Kind regards

Lily,

I can't offer you any advice about Harrow but I do need to tell you I love the way you write. Have you by any chance seen the film "Happy go lucky"?

anotherginger

I had considered Harrow-on-the-Hill on my last house move, but decided to go further out on the Met line. The Chiltern railways line also stops at the tube stops further out (Rickmansworth, Chorleywood, Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham), so it can be fairly quick into London.

ruggedtoast

Unless your friend has other funds than his teachers salary I'm afraid he has no chance whatsoever of affording harrow in the hill. He may just about manage Harrow Weald where it borders south oxhey.

neverdespairgirl

When melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley
And electric trains are lighted after tea
The poplars near the stadium are trembly
With their tap and tap and whispering to me,
Like the sound of little breakers
Spreading out along the surf-line
When the estuary's filling
With the sea.

Then Harrow-on-the-Hill's a rocky island
And Harrow churchyard full of sailor's graves
And the constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing
Is the level of the Wealdstone turned to waves
And the rumble of the railway
Is the thunder of the rollers
As they gather for the plunging
Into caves

There's a storm cloud to the westward over Kenton,
There's a line of harbour lights at Perivale,
Is it rounding rough Pentire in a flood of sunset fire
The little fleet of trawlers under sail?
Can those boats be only roof tops
As they stream along the skyline
In a race for port and Padstow
With the gale?

GDB2222

He's not entirely consistent in his great love of suburbia, though.


Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath

Mess up the mess they call a town -
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
and stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are made, (should that be mad?)
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

neverdespairgirl

Harrow and Slough are chalk and cheese (-:

GDB2222

"There's a storm cloud to the westward over Kenton"

You have to love that line. Ofc, Kenton is East of Harrow, but Eastwards doesn't work as well as Westwards in that line.