Again I behold where for
hours I have ponder’d,
As reclining, at eve, on yon
tombstone I lay;
Or round the steep brow of
the churchyard I wander’d,
To catch the last gleam of
the sun’s setting ray.
Lord Byron and I have something in
common. We both went to school on "the Hill." That is, Harrow-on the-Hill. Except he went to the
School, whereas I went to a small Sixth Form College located a little further
down the road in the grounds of an old Dominican Convent. But, like Byron
before me, the Hill remains “a favourite spot” – associated in my mind
with a time of very happy friendships. That time was some 30 years ago now, but
those friendships have lasted through the decades, and only just this summer,
we managed to meet up once again on the Hill for a reunion at The Castle
pub on West Street.
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| High Street, Harrow-on-the-Hill, c.1950s |
The Hill is one of those places
which time never seems to change or alter. It looks much the same today as it
did when I was at Sixth Form in the early 1990s, just the same as it does in
old black and white photos from the early Twentieth Century, and the same as it
appears in even earlier drawings and engravings dating back to Byron’s day. Harrow-on-the-Hill
stands like a verdant island oasis rising out of the surrounding sea of suburbia
on the edge of London, made all the more distinctive by the tall church spire
which reaches out of the green swathe of trees which seem to engulf the Hill.
Travelling north on either of the mainline railways departing from Euston or
Kings Cross-St. Pancras, Harrow-on-the-Hill can be seen as clearly as if it
were a beacon. Long after I’d moved away from Harrow, whenever I travelled on
these routes out of London, I’d always make sure I sat on the left-hand side of
the train carriage to ensure I saw that familiar view of my old hometown passing
by in the far distance.
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| High Street, Harrow-on-the-Hill, 2021 |
From the top of the Hill, looking out
in the other direction, it is possible to get some wonderful views of London to
the southeast – I remember a window on one of the staircases in my college
building which framed a lovely view of faraway London, with the Telecom Tower
as the most recognisable landmark at that time. From ‘The Viewpoint’ on the
crest of the Hill in St. Mary’s Churchyard, looking west, there’s an open view
all the way to Windsor somewhere on the broad horizon. A brass plaque in the
form of a topographical map is set on the top of a kind of look-out-point built
of stone on which you can stand and strain your eyes as you try to make-out
Windsor Castle – something which I have never managed to do (and, to be honest,
I have no idea if it is actually possible).
The Viewpoint, however, is far more
famous for a sight you’ll see if you turn your back on Windsor and look towards
the Church itself. Here you will notice a low table-type tomb built of brick,
supporting a cracked stone slab, and protected by an ornate iron cage. This is
the Peachey Tomb. Although it is also more popularly known as ‘Byron’s Tomb.’ But
this name is somewhat misleading, for it is not his tomb in the sense
that this is the grave where he lies buried. Rather, it is ‘Byron’s tomb’ in
the sense that this is the spot where the poet says he used to enjoy idling the
hours away during his schooldays in the early 1800s. This is the place where he
liked to watch the sunset while lying on top of this tomb beneath an elm tree.
Indeed, it is a scene which he sketches out in two poems that featured in his
first published book of poetry, Hours of Idleness (1807). These were
poems which he wrote when he was 18 and 19 years old, around the same age I was
when attending Sixth Form. In one of the poems, he imagines, at the end of his
life, his body being buried in a humble grave here in Harrow churchyard.
Oft have I thought, ’twould
soothe my dying hour,—
If aught may soothe, when
Life resigns her power,—
To know some humbler grave,
some narrow cell,
Would hide my bosom where it
lov’d to dwell;
With this fond dream,
methinks ’twere sweet to die—
And here it linger’d, here
my heart might lie;
Here might I sleep where all
my hopes arose,
Scene of my youth, and couch
of my repose;
For ever stretch’d beneath
this mantling shade,
The opening lines from this poem,
written by Bryon while sitting atop the tomb – as the poem’s title attests –
were later carved in marble and set with lead-lettering as a memorial to Byron
which stands at the foot of the Peachey Tomb. The stone was placed there in
1905 by the son of Sir George Sinclair Bart, a schoolfellow of Byron’s, in
memory of his father and the poet’s friendship. I am not sure when the iron cage
was placed over the tomb, but, so the local story goes, this cage needed to be installed
because the spot became a place of pilgrimage for overly ardent Byron fans
during the heady days of “Byronmania,” because the tomb was suffering from
people emulating the poet by clambering onto it and lolling about on the top,
or even more destructively deliberately chipping off pieces to take away as
mementoes.
My friends and I used to come to
this ‘favourite spot’ quite a lot. We’d sit on the benches here during college
breaktimes, as well as passing by when en route at the end of the
college day, heading back down to Harrow town centre, where we’d then kill time
wandering around the shops before reluctantly parting and making our separate
ways home. And a couple of years before I went to Sixth Form, I stayed for a
weekend in the Vicarage of St. Mary’s Church during the religious studies prior
to my Confirmation. The room I stayed in had a window which looked out over the
same view as that seen from the Viewpoint, just a short stone’s throw from the
Peachey Tomb itself. All of which meant the Hill was a place I came to know
intimately during my teenage years, much as Byron must have done.
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| Byron's name, Harrow School |
There are other traces of Byron too,
which can still be found lingering about the Hill. Perhaps the most direct
association is the carving of his name into the wooden panelling of the old
School Room. This particular piece of graffiti looks a lot neater than the
rendering of his name which is scratched into a stone pillar in the dungeon of
the Chateau de Chillon on the Swiss shores of Lake Leman, which is said to have
been inscribed by the poet himself while he was wandering through Europe during
his years of self-imposed exile, when his scandalous love life compelled him to
leave England.
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| Thomas Phillips, George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron (1788–1824) in Albanian Dress, 1834 |
A more poignant monument linking
Byron to Harrow Churchyard, however, is the one located low to the ground
beside the door of St. Mary’s South Porch. This is a small plaque commemorating
Byron’s daughter, Allegra. She was born ten years after Byron wrote his poem
beneath the elm tree here in the same churchyard, envisaging his own internment
there some day. Instead, it was his young daughter with Claire Clairmont who
was laid to rest here in 1822 in a very humble grave, so humble in fact that
only its rough location – somewhere near the porch door – is known. Allegra’s
grave remained unmarked until the Byron Society erected this plaque in 1980. At
the time of her burial, Allegra was denied a memorial, allegedly due to the
fact she had been born illegitimate, but the real reason was perhaps much more
likely due to the Church Authority’s aversion to Byron’s infamous immorality. Hence,
he knew they would never permit his body to be laid to rest there when the time
eventually came.
Allegra was just five years old
when she died, and although Byron had sent for her – her mother mistakenly
believing Allegra would have better prospects if she was raised by her famous
father – he neglected his daughter severely. First passing responsibility for her
care onto his friends, who were at best indifferent to her, and then subsequently
sending her off to a series of convents in remote parts of Italy, where he
wouldn’t have to see or think about her. It’s thought she died from typhus or
malaria. Her unexpected death shook her father to the core apparently. Guilt
and grief became transmuted. He had her small body sent back to England, where
he paid lavishly for her little coffin to be conveyed in a fancy horse-drawn hearse
from the London docks to Harrow. Where Allegra was buried in this ‘favourite
spot’ of his own youth, meaning that in some sense a part of him does lie here
in Harrow churchyard. It’s a sad story. But perhaps Allegra’s death embodies
the innocence, both hers and her father’s own, which Byron had so profligately
cast aside: “Deplor’d by those in early days allied, / And unremember’d by
the world beside.”
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| St. Mary's, Harrow-on-the-Hill, 1921 |
From The Viewpoint, St. Mary’s
Churchyard continues down the slope of the Hill. Filled with tall and imposing
Gothic Victorian headstones, there are many interesting graves and memorials to
be found hidden away here. It is a quiet and tranquil haven for birds and wildlife.
Wandering beneath the tall trees this summer, though, I was struck by how
unkempt and uncared for much of the churchyard seems nowadays. A lot of the
graves appear to have succumbed to the depredations of time and the elements in
the 30 years or so since my college days, when I used to pass through the old place
more regularly. At long last, outrun by time it seems, the names of many of
those who lived here long ago, and who have long since been laid to rest here
on the Hill, are no longer remembered by those ‘dearly beloved’ inscriptions which
have slowly eroded from their moss covered and ivy-swathed memorials. It seems
strange to think how a poet’s words and a poet’s fame can remain as something
more permanent than words and names which were intended to endure, wrought in
stone, forever. I suppose, as the Romantic poets knew and lamented only too
well, all things must pass in time. Though they change, places persist, while
memories fade.
It was during my time at Sixth Form
College, here on the Hill, while studying for English A-Level, that I first
read the Romantic poets. We studied John Keats, but I remember reading Byron
too. I can still recite Byron’s She Walks In Beauty by heart even today.
It is definitely one of my favourite poems. Studying the Romantics certainly
helped to instil a love of literature which in later years lead me on to
delight in the wicked humour of Byron’s epic, Don Juan. One of the
things I most enjoyed at Sixth Form was being a member of the creative writing club,
which wasn’t quite Dead Poet’s Society, but something rather like it
given the small size of the college and its beautiful grounds. I genuinely
enjoyed Sixth Form, despite the fact that I found A-Levels pretty hard-going –
tougher in fact than my subsequent studies at university, both as an
undergraduate and as a postgrad. I suppose it was a combination of time and
place, but most especially people – my friends and fellow students were what
made my two years at Sixth Form College so special. Hence, the same as Byron, I
feel a deep and abiding affection for the Hill because of the warmth derived
from the memories I retain of it.
Beyond the graveyard of St. Mary’s
Church, there is a wide expanse of green grass which hasn’t changed at all.
This green space, where as kids we used to go tobogganing in winter, is crossed
by a narrow path which starts at the foot of the Hill beside St. Anselm’s
Primary School (named after the beatified priest who first consecrated St.
Mary’s Church in 1094). The path runs across the side of the Hill to West
Street. In the mornings I often used to walk this path to college from the bus
station in Harrow on the days when I didn’t cycle to Sixth Form. It was always
a nice way to start the day, getting a breath of fresh air while listening to
the wind soughing through the branches of the tall trees surrounding the
church, whatever the season and whatever the weather. But it was even nicer to
walk this path once again on a sunny afternoon this summer. A true homecoming,
long awaited. Making my way up to The Castle once more, to meet with my old
college friends, and to feel all those years simply melt away.
Oh! as I trace again thy
winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart
adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm! beneath
whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mus’d the
twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were
wont, my limbs recline,
But, ah! without the thoughts
which then were mine:
How do thy branches, moaning
to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall
the past,
And seem to whisper, as they
gently swell,
“Take, while thou canst, a
lingering, last farewell!”
Also
on ‘Waymarks’
“Here Lies One Whose Name Is Writ In Water”
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| Byron's Elm & Church Terrace, Harrow - c.1910 |
