Most years during the Open House weekend, we stick to to the inner boroughs, but this year, with our newly expansive view of London, exploring an outer borough or two seemed appropriate. We set off on Sunday bright and early for the farthest west borough of Hillingdon.
First stop was St Mary's in Harefield, one of our 1000 Best Churches, which is decorated outside and in with fantastic carvings and monuments.
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| An ancestor of Lady Diana Spencer lies here. |
Sunday was the congregations seasonal Harvest Festival, and the church was beautifully decorated.
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| Hop vines and apples decorate the piers |
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| A magnificent vegetable arrangement |
Hillingdon was once rural land dotted with hamlets and villages dating back to medieval settlements. During the First World War this empty quarter, 14 miles west of central London, was used for landing aircraft. The hamlet of Heath Row was demolished as the airport began to expand with the growth of air travel in the 1930s. In the late 1940s, the government purchased land from the village of Harmondsworth to build the runways, and the surrounding hamlets were subsumed by the enormous airport.
Our next stop was the village of Harmondsworth to see the magnificent Great Barn dating to 1426. The previous government had approved a Third Runway for Heathrow that would have obliterated the remnants of medieval Harmondsworth still extant including the barn. Fortunately, the new government overturned approval for the scheme as one of their first acts.
In anticipation of the windfall to come with the runway expansion, an offshore Gibraltar company purchased the barn for £1 a few years ago and has let it deteriorate. Last year, English Heritage (the public-private quango that takes care of historic public property) stepped in to repair the roof to prevent further structural damage. EH is now suing the owners and may be able to get a mandatory purchase order if the company does not respond.
We moved on to another tithing barn in Ruislip which is still part of an extant medieval manor complex managed for commercial and public use by the town. Manor Farm has been occupied since the Normans arrived and built a Motte and Bailey fortress.
The present Manor House dates to the 16th century, and has been refurbished and turned into a local history museum.
The Tithing Barn is said to be the second largest in England and was hosting a wonderful crafts fair with food stalls. The huge Tithing Barns were used to store the harvested crops owed to the Lord of the Manor and the Church as rent by the farmers who worked the land.
Other Manor outbuildings are used as a public library, workshop space for artists, and meeting rooms.
We then drove east to the neighbouring borough of Harrow to visit Pinner, a medieval town that deserves more time than we had this afternoon. We stopped off at West House, once a gentleman's country estate set in a private park which is now a public park, and the house has recently been refurbished and opened as a museum exhibiting a collection of artwork by Heath Robinson, a one time resident of Pinner. Robinson's great love was landscape painting, but he made his living with illustrations and satirical cartoons.
West House will rotate the Robinson work on display so we will have to return regularly for further treats in the gallery and in the lovely cafe on site.
Finally, as the afternoon wound down, we arrived at the Church of St Lawrence in Little Stanmore, one of our 1000 Best Churches, and what a stunner. James Brydges, Paymaster General to the Duke of Marlborough, made himself a fortune and was made Duke of Chandos. He married a North London girl with a nice house which he elevated into a Baroque palace to match his boss's Blenheim. He incurred so much debt, his son had to sell off everything, a famous Georgian Fire Sale that furnished other great houses across the country. Chandos took on the medieval parish church and turned it into a Baroque masterpiece with grisaille painted Evangelists and Virtues on the side walls, Bellucci murals on the end walls, and a Laguerre decorated ceiling. Chandos hired Handel to compose for him, and the organ with Grinling Gibbons carved ornamentation, was built for Handel to play the commissioned work.
The Duke's Mausoleum stands in a side chamber, designed by James Gibbs, architect of some of London's most famous Georgian churches including St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, the template for most of New England's lovely spired churches.
Looking through the Open House booklet, I can see that in the past two months, we have visited, or at least been through, nearly all of London's boroughs. But the list of places to see and to walk grows longer rather than shorter, the more places we visit. I know London never ranks high on the pervasive lists of the "Best Places/Cities to Live/Retire" etc. because it is dirty and crime ridden and expensive, according to the criteria embraced by list makers, but I can't imagine a better mix of cultural landscapes, available activities, and international reach, all tied together by a public transport system that continues to expand, than this city in which I am lucky to now live.
Our next stop was the village of Harmondsworth to see the magnificent Great Barn dating to 1426. The previous government had approved a Third Runway for Heathrow that would have obliterated the remnants of medieval Harmondsworth still extant including the barn. Fortunately, the new government overturned approval for the scheme as one of their first acts.
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| 190 feet long and 40 feet high |
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| Dubbed the Cathedral of Middlesex by John Betjeman |
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| Original early-15th century wood structure is intact |
We moved on to another tithing barn in Ruislip which is still part of an extant medieval manor complex managed for commercial and public use by the town. Manor Farm has been occupied since the Normans arrived and built a Motte and Bailey fortress.
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| The Motte and Bailey site |
The Tithing Barn is said to be the second largest in England and was hosting a wonderful crafts fair with food stalls. The huge Tithing Barns were used to store the harvested crops owed to the Lord of the Manor and the Church as rent by the farmers who worked the land.
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| The Tithing Barn |
We then drove east to the neighbouring borough of Harrow to visit Pinner, a medieval town that deserves more time than we had this afternoon. We stopped off at West House, once a gentleman's country estate set in a private park which is now a public park, and the house has recently been refurbished and opened as a museum exhibiting a collection of artwork by Heath Robinson, a one time resident of Pinner. Robinson's great love was landscape painting, but he made his living with illustrations and satirical cartoons.
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| The First Aeronautical Wedding was on display |
Finally, as the afternoon wound down, we arrived at the Church of St Lawrence in Little Stanmore, one of our 1000 Best Churches, and what a stunner. James Brydges, Paymaster General to the Duke of Marlborough, made himself a fortune and was made Duke of Chandos. He married a North London girl with a nice house which he elevated into a Baroque palace to match his boss's Blenheim. He incurred so much debt, his son had to sell off everything, a famous Georgian Fire Sale that furnished other great houses across the country. Chandos took on the medieval parish church and turned it into a Baroque masterpiece with grisaille painted Evangelists and Virtues on the side walls, Bellucci murals on the end walls, and a Laguerre decorated ceiling. Chandos hired Handel to compose for him, and the organ with Grinling Gibbons carved ornamentation, was built for Handel to play the commissioned work.
The Duke's Mausoleum stands in a side chamber, designed by James Gibbs, architect of some of London's most famous Georgian churches including St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, the template for most of New England's lovely spired churches.
Looking through the Open House booklet, I can see that in the past two months, we have visited, or at least been through, nearly all of London's boroughs. But the list of places to see and to walk grows longer rather than shorter, the more places we visit. I know London never ranks high on the pervasive lists of the "Best Places/Cities to Live/Retire" etc. because it is dirty and crime ridden and expensive, according to the criteria embraced by list makers, but I can't imagine a better mix of cultural landscapes, available activities, and international reach, all tied together by a public transport system that continues to expand, than this city in which I am lucky to now live.
