Celebrating 40 years: Harrow Museum to Headstone Manor

Since its opening Headstone Manor and Museum has developed from a small local venture to the cultural hub for local families and history fans it is today.

In the upcoming digital exhibition, to celebrate our 40th anniversary, we will explore the origins of a museum in Harrow, the foundations of the trust and the transformation of the centuries old structures on the site into the museum we see today. The exhibition will include archival photographs, newspapers clippings and documents relating to the development of the Tithe Barn into a museum space, the huge 2015 renovation, transferring the museum into the Manor, as well as events which took place at the museum.

Celebrating four decades of the museum’s founding, we invite you to explore the people, milestones and moments that have shaped Headstone Manor and Museum. A site that continues to preserve and showcase the history of Harrow’s communities, both past and present.

This exhibition celebrates the creation of a Museum for Harrow, following its story from public calls for a local museum, the establishment of one on the Headstone Manor site, to the various additions, restorations and events held to this day. Originally called the Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre, from day one, the museum became the focal point for the local communities to express themselves and teach others, as a gathering place for celebrations, a spot for families to spend time and of course a place to engage in history. The Museum had its share of challenges, occupying a unique spot with buildings containing elements from different centuries, and different restoration needs, as well as shifting needs of the local communities. Nevertheless, Headstone Manor and Museum has managed to best these challenges and, after 40 years, is still a relevant link between the past and the modern.

Timeline

Call for a Museum

From the mid-20th century, there were growing calls to establish a museum dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the local area. Although there were small local museums, they were specific to the institution they were based at, Harrow School and Kodak factory for instance. After the Second World War, calls were increasing, with some pointing out that the whole of Middlesex did not have a museum, while even villages in France had their own.

On 20th August 1981 the Secretary of the Harrow Arts Council Literature  and Education Committee, Min Tufnell, wrote to a number of local societies and individuals inviting them to discuss overdue provision of a Museum and Gallery for Harrow. This meeting  led to the formation of the Museum Action Group which operated under the General Arts Committee of the Harrow Arts Council. The Group called a public meeting on 4 February 1983 at which they agreed to a proposal from the chairman of the Harrow Arts Council, Peter Hamill to establish a Friends group to raise funds for finding and maintaining a museum.

The search for premises began in July 1983. The chapel of Pinner Road Cemetery was considered but it was too small. At one point Elliot Hall was also offered, once the Harrow Arts Centre transferred to a more central location in the Borough, but this also fell through. In March 1984 the Council’s Leisure Committee recommended agreement in principle to lease the Manor House and Barns to the Museum Group. They launched an appeal to raise £100,000 on behalf of the Group Peter Hamill began to invite donations of artifacts and wrote to local stakeholders, including schools.  

The Friends group was launched in 1984, taking the title The Friends of Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre. Peter edited the Friends Newsletter and canvassed enthusiastically for new members of the group.

Headstone had ceased to be a farm in 1928 when the last farmer, A.W. Hall of Hall and Sons Dairy, was required to give the Council vacant possession and remove his hay by September. The Council had acquired the land from Hendon Rural District Council, through boundary changes in 1925. New housing had been built on former farmland by local builders which prompted the Council to decide that the remaining 63 acres, including the Manor House and Barns, should be used as a recreation ground for the new residents. The habitable parts of the Manor House became a residence for the Park Superintendent. The Great Barn was used for storage, as it had been since WWII.

In 1966 the Great Barn needed restoration. Potential use as a small sports hall was mooted e.g. table tennis. Following restoration it re-opened in May 1973 with a day of folk music and ceilidh dancing provided by the Harrow Folk Dance Club and the Herga Folk Club. From 1974 it was available for hire and open to the public on Sunday afternoons. 

1973 film by Nower Hill High School, called Nower Hill at One, covering the re-opening event. The full film is available at the London Screen Archives website.

In October of that year a Council Motion was passed to repair the Manor House for use as a museum of Middlesex and Local History. Future use options were listed as Museum, Arts Centre or Field Studies Centre. A recommendation was made to set up a working party with representation from a number of stakeholders including Harrow Arts Council and the Society for the protection of Ancient Buildings.

A New Museum is Born

After much campaigning, with the support of the Leisure Committee Chairman, Councillor Chris Mote and Peter Pitt, in October 1985 Harrow Council agreed to dedicate the site to Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre, with over £1 million in resources to prepare the buildings on the site for purpose.

As the chairman of the Harrow Art Council, John Teather was quoted in the Harrow Observer as saying ,‘at long last Harrow is to get a permanent museum.’

In Spring 1985 a 6 month-museum display was installed in the Barn, launched with a family day. Mayor Peter Pitt had set up the Harrow Heritage Trust to protect or enhance buildings of particular historic significance in Harrow, such as Headstone Manor. The Chairman of the Trust was Charles Gee and the Secretary was Peter Hamill. The Barn had no display cases which made it impossible to display delicate objects. Peter acquired large farm machinery and photographs to curate the display. In October the Harrow Observer reported that a £1m museum plan was being planned for the Manor site, to transform it into a “living museum” and heritage centre, depicting Harrow’s past. Peter Hamill and John Teather, Chairman of Harrow Arts Council, began planning a Heritage Festival to celebrate the opening of the new museum on May Day 1986. A musical composition was commissioned for the event ‘Fanfare for a Museum’. 

Harrow Scrapbook 1987: Although dating from 1987, the activities found at the 1987 May Day Fair were identical to the ones at the opening of the Museum. The full film is available through the London Screen Archives.

The Museum was known locally as The Barn because the Great Barn housed the exhibits. In later years, exhibit cases were donated by the Friends of the Museum over the years, allowing the museum to display smaller and more fragile items, and with the size of the barn, one side of it functioned as a volunteer run cafe and shop.

The Small Barn

Originally, the small barn was only half its current length. It was built as a barn or stable in the 1550s and is thought to contain timbers from a former gatehouse which was demolished, along with adjoining buildings, in 1553. A second structure was built next to it and both were roofed over as one, possibly in the 1600s. Archaeological finds indicate that there were earlier buildings on the same spot, including a hearth-like structure which could point to it having been a small house. The barn is listed as Grade II by English Heritage.

In the 20th century the barn was used as a changing room by sportsmen who played in the park. It was vandalised in the 1970s in an arson attack, standing as a skeleton and covered by a canopy until 1994-95 when it was carefully restored for use as an interpretation centre for Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre. Mayor Stephen Giles-Medhurst opened it at the May Day celebrations in 1996 

As part of the current Museum the Small Barn houses local finds, some dating back to the Neolithic, and offers the opportunity to watch a short introductory film about the history of the site and of Harrow from the Stone Age to the 20th century.

The Granary Joins the Site

As part of the current Museum the Small Barn houses local finds, some dating back to the Neolithic, and offers the opportunity to watch a short introductory film about the history of the site and of Harrow from the Stone Age to the 20th century.

The building was in bad condition when it was rescued by the Council in 1991. There were plans from early in the establishment of the museum to transport the Granary to the site. So it was dismantled, taken to Headstone Manor and reconstructed in the space formerly occupied by a stock barn. It opened as an exhibition space on May Day 1992, and was opened officially as part of Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre in 1996 by Mayor Stephen Giles-Medhurst.

The move was funded by the First National Bank and various heritage charities including the Harrow Heritage Trust, Harrow Council, and the Heritage Trust of London.

While restoration of the Great Barn was underway in 2015 it housed the café until the new Welcome Centre and Moat Café opened in 2017. The Granary is the Learning Centre of the Museum, hosting teaching sessions for visiting school groups, talks held by incoming speakers and available for family activities on other days. 

The Great Barn

The Great Barn is listed as Grade II* by English Heritage. It was built in 1505-06 by Richard Boughton for Archbishop Warham costing £44, 11 shillings and eightpence halfpenny. The barn is built of English oak with wattle and daub panels between the timber supports. Inside, the space was divided by a partition so that the more westerly end could be used as stabling for the archbishop’s horses, while crops were stored in the rest of the Barn.

Over the centuries various outer stores were added and demolished, according to need. During WWII the barn was used as an Air Raid Patrol and Home Guard store, housing sandbags and other necessities. In 1943 as part of the ‘Holidays at Home’ effort it became the Barn Theatre with a stage and painted backdrops. Beneath the stage numerous large drums of a chemical to be used in the event of a nerve gas attack were tightly packed. They were removed during restoration of the barn in the early 1970s. 

Further restoration was undertaken in the 1990s and 2015, when the second phase of the Heritage Lottery Fund Award was made to the Council. The timbers were mostly in good condition but the roof required re-tiling, using new tiles where they were less visible. A beautiful white floor, suitable for weddings, replaced the former dark red and underfloor heating was installed. The barn reopened in 2016.

Over the years, the friends of the museum were able to donate exhibit cases for the museum, allowing the display of smaller and more fragile objects.

Saving The Manor House

The Manor House is Grade I listed. The oldest parts of the house date back to 1310-1315. It was probably built by a family called the Ramseyes, who bought the land in 1304.

Each of Headstone Manor’s former owners has left their mark on the building, moving walls and adding extensions, adapting it to reflect their needs and the tastes. The original house had an oak frame with wattle and daub panels between the supporting timbers, By the 1760s, the current Georgian brick facade was present.

Its later tenants were farmers and Headstone was known as the Moat Farm. The need to feed the horses of Victorian London led to the farm being used to grow hay instead of crops. When the railway brought former city dwellers out to live in Harrow dairy farming took over. 

The house was in poor condition when it was acquired by Harrow Council in 1928. Research by a local Councillor, Rev Ramsey Cooper, uncovered its prominent past and in 1974 the Council resolved to repair the house for use as a museum of Middlesex and local history. Being a complex building, with elements from different centuries, extensive work would be needed to get the house ship shape for the museum to move in. The roof over the remaining section of the medieval Great Hall particularly was in bad condition, needing a protective cover. Then began a long wait for funds to be available. But until then, the museum continued to occupy the barn, the more stable parts of the manor served as accommodation for Peter Hamill and his family.

Appeals were launched in 1991 for £1 million, which was secured through a Lottery bid in 1995, of which part was spent on construction of a separate museum storage and office space. In April 1996 a £390,000 award was made from the Lottery for the first phase of renovations and improvements. In 1998 £1.5 million was awarded after a successful joint bid by the Council, Harrow Heritage Trust and Harrow Arts Council. The first phase of work on the Manor House, to save the oldest parts, began in 2003 and an official opening took place on 15 September 2005, with guided tours of the accessible parts.

A permanent feature of this phase was the installation of huge steel supports at the southern end of the house which took the weight of the roof and allowed around 90% of the original fabric of the walls to be retained.

On 27 March 2015 the second phase award was made by the Heritage Lottery Fund, £3.6m for restoration of the Great Barn and construction of a new Welcome Centre. The Six o’clock News sent reporter Martin Stew to interview the museum manager and curator, Jo Saunders. The award resulted in all the buildings being re-roofed.

The new Headstone Manor and Museum opened at a Frost Fair weekend in December 2017. Appropriately there was heavy snow! The new museum allowed for the mobility impaired to explore the upper levels with a lift. In contrast with the barn where the visitor went from case to case, the house allowed the visitor to ‘travel through time’ from room to room, exploring the history of the house as well as the area.

Secrets Unearthed: Archaeological digs

With the history of the grounds going back to the Medieval period, it is to be expected that many of its lost secrets have been buried in the very ground visitors now trek over. With the numerous restorations and the movement of the granary onto the site allowed for a few archaeological surveys on site, some of which led to revelations!

The earliest investigation was in June 1974, when Dr Malcolm Airs reported to the Council, concluding that the Manor was of great importance, including the remnants of a medieval hall, leading to the ultimate decision to restore the house and host a museum within.

Following on, numerous excavations have been made around the small barn and the Granary, revealing evidence of previous, now lost structures, and an artefact was discovered in excavations around the small barn. In 1990, the excavation team even added a time capsule beneath the site of the granary for future archaeologists to find.

Within the 1990s, the manor was studied by David and Barbara Martin. In October 1997 a separate dig on the south side of the manor revealed foundation underneath, leading to the conclusion that the Great Hall extended further than initially thought, although there are still debates about its original structure.

In 2001, with the excavation of the manor, some of the more interesting finds were a George IV halfpenny, probably from 1828, along with shell fish remnants and clay pipe fragments. A stone flint, thought to have been discovered in a drain on the site by the donor, was the museums’ first donated object in 1986 and is currently on display in the small barn.

In 2014 an excavation was organised by the MOLA and UCL to discover more about the medieval past of the gate house by the granary, a well, along with the foundations of four cottages. The first stage included a school dig from local primary and secondary schools, while the second stage allowed fee paying adults to learn the basics in archaeology. Finds included a post medieval key, a rose farthing of Charles I and a medieval weight with H on it.

To this day the Museum still supports budding archaeologists through its support of local schools who organise digs.

Fairs and Events

Holding May Day Fairs has been a part of the site from the very beginning, from the re-opening of tithe barn in 1973 to annual celebrations to this day. The May Day fair and the Headstone Village Fair, taking place on the last bank holiday of August, have been the staple of the museum calendar. Since its conception, each year has had a theme, with entertainments to match, from medieval theme for the first May day in 1986, to VE day for last year’s. These fairs also allow for local businesses to introduce their products to new audiences.

Haunted Headstone

There are numerous stories of the Manor house being haunted, from locked windows miraculously opening over night to a ghostly cavalier living at the manor. Leading to stories and investigations. In the summer of 2008, perhaps trying to tempt out the museum's non-archaeological secrets, the London Paranormal Society held an overnight investigation at the Manor, reporting unattributed footsteps, slamming doors and floating lights.

Perhaps as an attempt to make the ghost feel welcome, the museum started holding halloween events, this was incredibly popular with the local community with over 100 people attending the Halloween spooktacular in 2015. After the lock-down this was recreated as the pumpkin trail, for younger audiences to take part.

The Olympic Torch

On 25 July 2012, the Olympic Torch passed by the Manor on its final stretch to the opening ceremony. It was sent on its way from the doors of the Manor by the Mayor Councillor Nizam Ismail, who passed it to runner Johann Hyams. She went over the bridge, ran twice around Bessborough cricket club field, all while a match was going on, and out towards Wembley to relay the torch to the next runner.

The day was well attended with the education team having their hands full making paper torches for the 600 children who attended the event in the first hour alone.

The Great Flood

Headstone Manor and Museum can boast being one of the few moated manor houses in the south east of England, and in many cases, being surrounded by water may provide protection against flooding. However, it also means the ground is already saturated. On Wednesday 26th August, after a relatively wet summer, the ground could not hold any more moisture, and water flowed over the grounds, flooding the museum site and nearby paths. The water subsided by the next day, but it led the museum to drastic landscaping measures to guarantee against flooding in the future. Large drainage ditches can be seen in the Headstone Recreational Ground today as a result of this.

Entering its 40th year, Headstone Manor and Museum has gone from strength to strength. Its conception being a result of a lack of a local museum despite the historic richness of the area. From the start the museum took its mission to preserve the local history and educate the community very seriously, raising funds to restore buildings and even going as far as to move one on to the site! In terms of providing more than a dry history lesson the museum did not disappoint the community, providing educational opportunities such as Tuesday talks, family trails, fairs and even the occasional archaeological dig!

To this day, Headstone Manor and Museum continues to function as a beacon of the community, providing education, entertainment, a place for refreshments and a nice place to spend time. It is a site where couples celebrate becoming married, local crafts advertise and sell their wares, where families have a fun day out and of course where communities mingle to learn about their past. Happy 40th Birthday Headstone Manor and Museum, and many happy returns.

If you enjoyed this exhibition, don’t forget to pop into the cafe and look at the cafe case, ‘From Medieval Manor to Museum’ to view some of the items relating to the history of the museum in person.