Stunning Heritage : South Harrow 2

Puzzles To Solve : A Name

The above picture is a montage of a genuine station roundel in its surround and situated on the platform at South Harrow. But Mr Tease, Geoff Marshall, had changed the name to Roxeth. Now fbb is no Mastermind expert on London district names, but, delving to the very depths of his ageing brain, he could not remember ever having met "Roxeth" before. 

Geoff also includes an old map extract.

And, lo and behold, there it is on a modern map ...

... even on a detailed enlargement.

Next is an old map of Harrow ...

... and there is the hamlet of Roxeth lower centre. But, as yet, there is no railway line and no mention of South Harrow. 

But move on to the early 1910s ...

... and, equally fuzzily, we have Roxeth and slightly south thereof, we have a red blob marked "STA" which fbb can assure his readers is our subject for this series of blogs, viz South Harrow. 

Of course, the expansion of the "underground" was often about making money from building housing estates. fbb reckons that the District Railway Company, one time operators of the trains to South Harrow station, used the name of its illustrious northern neighbour because it sounded more desirable than the relatively unknown Roxeth.

Here is a old picture of the very rural Northolt Road just north of South Harrow station, showing Roxeth farmhouse!

Incidentally, Roxeth farmhouse is still there, but very well shielded by hedged and trees.

It also has its own bus stop (picture, upper left).

Just to confuse everyone, the Chiltern line station at Northolt Park (below, lower left) ...

 ... which opened in 1926, was called South Harrow and Roxeth until 1929 when it was given its present name ...

... to serve Northolt Park racecourse. The former South Harrow and Roxeth station is just about visible in the picture below, top right!

Puzzle To Solve : A Sign

We know that travelling north from South Harrow, trains continue to Rayners Lane and Uxbridge. But the line is a simple two track route, you either go to Uxbridge or, in the southbound direction, to Hammersmith and London.

The sign is no longer used but fbb thinks he might know why and when it was installed. Why might there be a choice of platforms for e.g trains to Uxbridge? Explaining the old man's rambling thought processes is complex, but might just be fascinating to an inquisitive reader.

The line opened in 1903 with South Harrow as its terminus.

Like all the "sub-surface" lines on the underground network (now the Metropolitan and the District lines), trains were generally steam hauled.

That pipe leading to the water tank shows that the loco was fitted with "condensing apparatus"; which, supposedly, fed the steam back as water to reduce the fog in the tunnels. The technology was largely ineffective as the locos still burned coal and made smoke.

One of the first sections to be electrified was the branch to South Harrow ...

... although fbb could find no evidence as to whether trains were loco hauled as above, or the new fangled multiple units as below.

One picture on-line has baffled your inquisitive author. What train is this ...

... captioned as "leaving South Harrow."? District Line aficionados might be able to explain to fbb@xephos.com.

But surely there was a bigger plan for the line. From another fuzzy map extract we can see the dotted lines (lines in RED, the green colour for District would come later) ...

... joining the South Harrow branch to the Uxbridge line of the Metropolitan at Rayners Lane. That link happened in 1910.

From that date, District trains ran all the way to Uxbridge ...

... and eventually the line gained the colour green.

But getting from South Harrow to Rayners Lane presented a problem.

Roxeth Marsh was in the way.

Of course, it isn't there today ...

... as there seem to be a whole lotta houses between South Harrow (bottom right) and the junction with the "Met", top left).

We will explore this bit of line and more from the former terminus in tomorrow'a blog.

 Next South Harrow blog : Sat 22nd Feb