Harrow Baptist Church - how to see it for free

Harrovian speakers club meets the first and third and fifth mondays each month (except bank holidays) at Harrow Baptist church, not in a meeting room but the actual church hall, modern yet very atmospheric, with the high ceiling and stained glass window.

I must have passed the church many times and not noticed it. The building is set back from the busy shopping street behind a railing.

I like the entrance yard with greenery at the sides. The street outside should be edged with plants, not just the occasional tree.

Inside, turn right into the church. Just beyond the entrance doors to the church is the baptismal area, a rectangular deep sunkern area, so even a six foot person can be immersed. I picked up a leaflet about it in the hallway.

It reminded me of a Jewish mikvah, also designed for total immersion, same principle, cleanse yourself physically and mentally. The Muslims and hindus wash their feet eery time they enter a place of worship.

If you have a chance to attend a meeting, or church service, or just to peer through the gates, do so.

Go to a free Harrovian Toastmasters Speakers Club meeting on the first, third and fifth Mondays each month, except bank holidays. Enjoy the Toastmasters meeting and the bonus is you get to see the church, without any commitment to Toastmasters or the church, just an entertaining evening hearing speakers practise their speeches and seeing the beautiful church.

For more details aabout Toastmaster meetings, go to the website Toaastmasters International Find a club

About the author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Harrow On The Hill Station Is Being Redeveloped - how to see the exhibition, church, and give your views

Catch the Metropolitan line from Baker Street, my dear Sherlock, and you will be on your way to Harrow, and the famous Harrow school at the top of the hill.

Harrow School. Walk uphill or take a bus. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The station is at the bottom of the hill in the busy shopping area, with two indoor shopping malls linked to the pedestrian precinct.

Until recently, the big complaint was that we travellers had no step-free access to the station. Really annoying, especially as the adjacent bus station has the buses to Northwick Park hospital which you might visit if you are ill or injured, or you are visiting an elderly person and yourself not so keen on stairs. As for people with luggage, suitcases on wheel, shopping trolleys, mothers with kids asleep in buggies the station needs stairs!

Now for the good news.

Harrow on the Hill station is being redeveloped. The plans are being exhibited at the Baptist Church from the 13th to the 16th Feb 2019.

Baptist Church
The Baptist Church itself is a hidden gem. The entrance is set back, turn right from the station when facing the shopping mall. Walk almost to the end of the road (College Road), just before the turning right into Station Road which features Debenhams on the left and McDonalds on the right.

If you don't manage to make it, you can email them. I sent them several suggestions of ideas I had seen in Singapore at stations and Community Clubs.

The email they sent me about the exhibition said that if you could not go email then, and I could not see the email. However, when I acted like Sherlock and followed the website link I found the click through to an email contact.

The new development will include housing and eating places.

Useful Websites
www.harrowonthehill.redrow.co.uk
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/02/harrows-hidden-church.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. 

Harrow's Hidden Church

I must have walked past the church many times and not noticed it. The Baptist church in Harrow. It is just around the corner from McDonalds, a few yards from Harrow on the Hill station. Just near the statue of Lucy with her skipping rope.

In January two groups held meetings there. Harrovian Toastmasters International speakers club, and the Liberal MP group.

Harrovians speakers met in the sanctuary, which contains a sunken baptismal area, a bit like Jewish mikvah or ritual bath, like a Jacuzzi, but square, and deeper, with steps down. Total immersion.

If you wish to attend a meeting such as the Sunday church service, Harrovian Toastmasters, or another event such as a political or local group meeting, the address is below.

If you walk from St George's car park through St George's indoor mall into the pedestrian open air area of shops, you pass Primark and several shops selling food and clothes and Santander and Poundland. When you emerge into Station Road, with Debenhams on your left, instead turn right towards McDonalds. The next turning containing the station is not station road but is called College Road, presumably because it once led towards a college or Harrow School. The church entrance is only two along but set back behind a metal gate and railings, a modern vertical wall but clearly marked as a church.

Harrow Baptist Church
College Road
Harrow
Middlesex
England
UK

Contrast the modern with the ancient. At the top of the Harrow hill is the old church where the poets and writers would visit and the boys from Harrow school.

Old Harrow on the Hill. Photo by Angela Lansbury. 

Take the bus up from the bus station near the modern church.

Useful Websites
http://www.harrovians.org.uk/
https://www.harrow-baptist.org.uk/welcome.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_baptism
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/02/harrow-on-hill-station-is-being.html

Photos will be added later.