56. HARROW. JORDANS. CHALFONT ST. GILES. STOKE POGES.
MOTORISTS have a choice of three main roads: From the Marble Arch via Edgware Road, Harrow Road , Harlesden, Wembley, Sudbury, Harrow, Pinner, and Northwood to Rickmansworth and Chorley Wood (20 miles); from the Marble Arch via Bayswater Road , Uxbridge Road, Ealing, Oxbridge, and Denham to Beaconsfield (23 miles); or from Hyde Park Corner via Kensington Road , Hammersmith, Brentford, and Hounslow to Slough (21 miles).
CYCLISTS can easily visit all the chief points of interest in one day; but PEDESTRIANS must choose between the district to the north of Beaconsfield and the district to the south, the latter being perhaps the more interesting.
A. FROM LONDON TO HARROW AND CHALFONT.
From Baker St. Station (Metropolitan Railway) or Marylebone Station (London & North Eastern Railway) to Harrow-on-the-Hill, 9+ miles in 15-35 minutes (every 10 minutes from Baker St.; 1/10+, 1/1+); to Rickmansworth, 17+ miles in +-+ hour (3/7, 2/2); to Charley Wood, 19+ m. in 35-55 minutes (4/1, 2/5); to Chalfont, 21+ miles in +-1 hour (4/6, 2/8).
The trains from Marylebone Station make their first stop at Harrow. The trains from Baker St. Station serve a number of local stations, including (6+ miles) Wembley Park.
Here (left) some of the buildings of the British Empire Exhibitions of 1924 and 1925 still await an undetermined future. The Empire Stadium, half as large again as the Colosseum at Rome, with room for 125, 000 spectators, is still used for important football matches and athletic meetings. In 1924 the number of visitors to the Exhibition was 17, 403, 267, in 1925 it was 9, 699, 231.
9+ miles. Harrow-on-the-Hill (King's Head, Room from 8/, Luncheon 5/; tea 2/, Dinner 6/6), a residential town (population 19, 468) with several railway stations, is mainly situated on a conspicuous hill, rising 200 feet above the plain. Harrow School, one of the great public schools of England, was founded in 1571 by John Lyon, a yeoman of the parish. Among its former pupils are Sheridan, Spencer Perceval, Byron, Peel, Palmerston, Manning, Faber, Trollope, and Winston Churchill. The school buildings (shown any afternoon by the caretaker at the Old Schools; gratuity) lie immediately to the south of the parish church. The Old Schools, built about 1609, contain the 'Fourth Form Room,' with panelled walls scored with the names of former pupils. The rest of the buildings, including the chapel (1857) and the library (1863), the speech-room (1877), and the War Memorial Building (1921), are modern. The boys (643 in 1925) live in masters' boarding-houses in or near the town. The Parish Church, with its conspicuous spire, has a Norman archway in the lower part of the tower; inside, on the north side of the nave, is the brass of John Lyon (died 1592), with a stone memorial above. In the churchyard (fine view) is the flat tombstone (railed in; tablet) on which Byron as a boy used to recline, but the elm-tree is gone.
