The view from Roxeth is very fine. The playing fields of Harrow School, the spire of St Mary's Church and various villas on the slopes below.
However Roxeth isn't the cultured enclave at the top of Harrow Hill it's a suburb at the bottom, originally a villageto the southwest, hence arguably Harrow-Under-The Hill. It's another example of somewhere that does have a station, indeed it has two, but ever since the bigger one was called South Harrow in 1903 the original name's been ebbing away. It lingers in streetnames, also the local library, park and two schools, whereas the local authority ward of the same name is a modern invention and doesn't quite match the original Roxeth at all. Let's start on the opposite side of the road to my first photo where we find Roxeth's oldest building, a 17th century weatherboarded farmhouse called Roxeth Farm.
Alas the owners have sought to shield their property behind a very high hedge so all you can see is a hipped roof from the side and a sash-windowed slot at the front, but it does look to be delightfully wonky. I had wondered if the barn out back was another rural survivor but no, it's one of three pavilions for Harrow School's extensive cricket fields, the Philathletic Ground. According to the whiteboard on West Street the last matches played here were against Merchant Taylors' on 20th June, over ten weeks ago, because one thing that termly fees of £21,990 deliver is a very long summer break.
The centre of the village was a four-way junction on the Northolt Road, now a five-way maelstrom called Roxeth Corner. The only building a Victorian would remember is The Half Moon pub, a half-timbered beauty originally named after the shape of the village pond. Its place in history relates to Britain's first fatal car accident in 1899 which, as a plaqueelsewhere attests, took place below Harrow School during a descent of Grove Hill. The Half Moon was merely the site of the subsequent public enquiry, hearing how a rear wheel collapsed and two passengers were hurled from their seats, one dying instantly and the other from his injuries three days later. Perhaps unsurprisingly the pub is now an Indian Grill and Shisha Lounge called the Salt Bar, but if you still want a more traditional local try The White Horse a short walk up Middle Hill.
The road rising eastwards here is Roxeth Hill, this the route the 258 bus takes to climb from South Harrow to the upper heights of Harrow School. Full marks to the TfL employee who designated the bus stop halfway up with the letters RH. Roxeth Hill is lined by some of the finer buildings erected as the suburb expanded, from small-scale workers' cottages to Arts and Crafts semis, also rustic Christ Church built to cater to a growing population and set back from the main road. Roxeth Primary still educates pupils in an angular hall built for that very purpose in 1851, indeed it's Harrow's oldest surviving state school. I suspect the triple-bend footbridge shoehorned outside is pupil-related, self-evidently over-engineered when a lollipop lady would do, but the upper span does offer excellent views across the rooftops of Roxeth and the plains of Ruislip.
By contrast the main road south from Roxeth Corner is architecturally grim. Here former pubs and cottages have been replaced by dubious postwar and postmillennial flats, while the former petrol station has become a drab stacked hotel. The largest presence is Harrow Police Station (alas not Roxeth Police Station), an outdated flag-flying office block whose front desk remains at risk of closure. Arguably the big Waitrose is a big improvement on what was on the site before, namely a mighty tall gasholder with the letters 'NO' painted on the side, this because it was a key navigational landmark on the approach to Northolt airfield. The sole attractive building on this stretch is the clubhouse of the Royal British Legion's Harrow branch which was built in 1927 in Dutch style, its bar and function room even busier visually than the twiddly exterior.
Which brings us to the tube station, namely South Harrow, which was opened in 1903 by the District Railway and transferred to the Piccadilly line in 1932. Charles Holden designed the new station building which outside looks to be less of a stunner than usual, but inside has a whoppingly broad ticket hall and a pair of delightful recessed benches halfway up the stairs in case an ascent of 40 steps proves too much. To the north of the station the railway crosses Roxeth Marsh on a low viaduct, hard though it is today to imagine the adjacent avenues as mushy fields. But just down to the left is the source of the River Roxbourne, a minor brook so named because it rises outside Roxeth, and I've previously blogged that in depth so won't dive in again.
More relevant is what's been crammed under the arches immediately opposite the station. This is South Harrow Market, one of London's quirkier retail hideaways, essentially two long alleyways serving a warren of tiny bazaars. Most serve up food, so you may need to push past a delivery driver or two, while others will print you a banner, buy your gold or stab needles in your feet. The curse of AI graphics has struck several of the menus, hence I found the Nepalese and Gujarati pictures less convincing than the proper photos at Syria Food. Again it's a shame it's not called Roxeth Market, given it's right on the edge of the original village, but the nominative pull of the adjacent tube station has proved too strong.
Continue down the Northolt Road and barely any businesses mention the old place, with only Roxeth Library flying the flag. Even the Chiltern Railways station at the foot of the hill was only called 'South Harrow and Roxeth' for the first three years after opening, after which it was renamed Northolt Park thanks to the creation of a neighbouring housing estate, thus Roxeth's chances of long-term renown were scuppered. For a proper commemoration best see the information boards at the entrance to Roxeth Recreation Ground, these a step up from Harrow's normal design. The text confirms that the name "Hroecs Seath" was first mentioned in monastic documents in 845AD, even if nobody's 100% sure what Hroecs Seath meant, also that several trees in the park are leftovers from ancient field boundaries. You have alas missed this year's Roxeth Show, the revival of a 1970s tradition, because that was in July.
Across the railway line from the rec is South Hill Drive, a lengthy avenue whose streetsign has the unusual combination of a 'No Through Road' symbol and underneath "Except by Toll Road". Follow along and all looks normal at first until suddenly the road forks at two white gates, both closed to vehicles unless you have the correct gizmo to open them. The low road enters land owned by the South Hill Estate while the high road enters the Mount Park Estate, another private residential enclave. Both declare that there is NO THOROUGHFARE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC but fail to clarify whether pedestrians are included so I strode through a side gate, greeted a resident walking down the hill with a Waitrose bag and chanced my arm.
It feels more Surrey than Middlesex, a sylvan climb where villas and minor mansions still feel the need to hide behind high fences and hedges despite supposedly being private anyway. Some have odd names like The Hut (which definitely isn't) or The Site, while others go for supreme Metro-land bland and call themselves Northmount, Southview, Hillcrest or The Oaks. A dozen have been here since the 19th century, a few are totally-out of character modern flats, and I have no idea how residents successfully held suburbia at bay but it's an extraordinary and privileged residential backwater nonetheless. I exited unscathed through a gate near the top of Sudbury Hill, still historically in ye olde Roxeth, another patch of secret London unlocked.
