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Post by dem on Oct 2, 2023 13:08:22 GMT
"Ask to see Byronās tomb at Harrow School and you could cause confusion to any ill-informed tourists within earshot. The cover of the current Harrow Hill trust info booklet reprints a Victorian illustration depicting Byron writing verse at the Peachey stone. There's a stone monument to his daughter, Allegra just outside the church door. Much as I enjoyed having the place to myself, I'd been hoping to meet the groundsman. The guy has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the place ... barring the phantom nun, or any other alleged ghosts, come to that. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2023 13:16:05 GMT
From Tales of old Middlesex by Mike Hall:
"Things became so bad that the grave had to be protected by iron railings and any budding poet seeking inspiration from bodily contact with the very stone that supported the Byronic behind would be faced with some difficulty. The elm tree that shaded him as he lay dreaming has gone ā burned down - after a bonfire had been lit in it one 5th November during the First World War."
You can see an impressive view in that illustration. What is the view like now? From your photo there doesn't seem to be much of one.
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Post by dem on Oct 2, 2023 13:40:02 GMT
Far as I've been able to find out, it wasn't a bonfire but a discarded cigarette burnt down the elm. The choirboys got the blame at the time, but several years later one came forward to identify the culprit as a soldier enjoying a crafty drag.
The view is still breathtaking though, obviously, the skyline isn't pretty as it used to be, and you can't see quite as far. I'm just a crap photographer.
After prowling the village, and prior to making a pilgrimage to haunted bench, Harrow Weald cemetery, etc, I headed for Wealdstone library to borrow some books. There's this great scheme now where you can loan books from just about every (participating) London borough, and even as far outside as Luton and Reading, return them to your local branch rather than, as used to be the case, take them back where you originally found them.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2023 13:40:49 GMT
 The first book-length scholarly examination of the four critically formative years of Byron's public school experience, 1801-1805 How did Byron become "Byron"? In Lord Byron at Harrow Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out , Paul Elledge locates one origin of the poet's personae in the dramatic recitations young Byron performed at Harrow School. This is the first book-length scholarly examination of the four critically formative years of Byron's public school experience, 1801 to 1805, when Harrow enjoyed high subscription and fame under Dr. Joseph Drury, headmaster. archive.org/details/lordbyronatharro0000elle |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2023 14:42:06 GMT
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2023 15:02:46 GMT
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Post by dem on Oct 2, 2023 15:15:06 GMT
I tried out the Ephemera Fair at the Holiday inn, Bloomsbury, on Sept. 24th, as it seemed the likeliest place to find maps and postcards for on-off local history project. Bookwise, perhaps unsurprisingly, not nearly so many stalls as when the event clashes with the Pulp & Paperback fair, and what, admittedly rare, paperbacks I saw were ... "competitively priced"; better luck with the postcards, though, prices starting at Ā£1. Came away with six, including the above pair from the early 1900s. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2023 15:33:22 GMT
They are nice. Maybe next time you are there you can take photos of the same view (badly obviously), so we can get a then and now idea.
At least the area tends to be recognisable. I had a relative who went on a Ripper tour, and there isn't really anything remaining of the sites, so it's really a case of using your imagination. A famous pub remains, the Els Bells I believe, Vic Flange drinks there I'm told (very obscure joke this, I didn't think of it another relative did).
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enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 120
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Post by enoch on Oct 2, 2023 21:04:17 GMT
I find that interior illustration (copperplate etching?) titled "Harrow Schoolroom" to be utterly terrifying, for some reason. Does anyone else? I think the postcards are charming, though.
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Post by Swampirella on Oct 2, 2023 21:05:58 GMT
It is certainly at least somewhat creepy.
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enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 120
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Post by enoch on Oct 2, 2023 22:02:51 GMT
On the Creep Scale, it looks like a cross between "The Mezzotint" and that terrifying picture the kid in Alfred Noyes' "Midnight Express" would pin together so that he didn't have to look at it.
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Post by dem on Oct 3, 2023 6:44:47 GMT
They are nice. Maybe next time you are there you can take photos of the same view (badly obviously), so we can get a then and now idea. At least the area tends to be recognisable. I had a relative who went on a Ripper tour, and there isn't really anything remaining of the sites, so it's really a case of using your imagination. A famous pub remains, the Els Bells I believe, Vic Flange drinks there I'm told (very obscure joke this, I didn't think of it another relative did).  Image by kind permission of Marion 'Magic Camera' Bondage/ Vault Photo Library The Ten Bells. Once the Vault nerve-centre (ie, Franklin and me would meet there to plot board mischief). It is reputedly very haunted. Ghosts of Jack the Ripper The tours are (were? not sure they survived lockdown) laughable. There's nothing left to see. Even the multi-story car-park they'd stop to gawp at is gone (it stood vaguely on the site of the former Millers Court). Looking over the lapsed JTR Museum news thread, depressingly it is still going; the owner put the site up for sale some years ago (or made a drama of informing the press he had) but no takers as yet. |
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Post by andydecker on Oct 3, 2023 10:34:14 GMT
I find that interior illustration (copperplate etching?) titled "Harrow Schoolroom" to be utterly terrifying, for some reason. Does anyone else? I think the postcards are charming, though. Yes, there is something depressing in it. Violent teaching, bullying and forced learning without understanding.
Harrow seems to be an inspiring name for horror fiction. American horror writer Douglas Clegg did five novels about a house called Harrow which at least in the second book is a private boy's school.
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enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 120
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Post by enoch on Oct 3, 2023 13:28:16 GMT
I find that interior illustration (copperplate etching?) titled "Harrow Schoolroom" to be utterly terrifying, for some reason. Does anyone else? I think the postcards are charming, though. Yes, there is something depressing in it. Violent teaching, bullying and forced learning without understanding.
Harrow seems to be an inspiring name for horror fiction. American horror writer Douglas Clegg did five novels about a house called Harrow which at least in the second book is a private boy's school.
The more I look at it, the more harmless it seems. My initial impression was that the chamber's rear recesses were much more in shadow, and the man stalking towards us from them had a menacing expression and himself almost seemed to be part shadow. I could only make out the one schoolboy sitting off to the side, absorbed in his lesson. Now I see that the man is not particularly threatening, the room's shadows aren't as dark as I thought, and can make out other children in the picture. I probably just read too many horror stories for my own good.... |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Feb 5, 2024 15:06:27 GMT
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