A Journey Blog - of sorts

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 14:10

It is canal related too!

Regular readers will know that our "premier blogger" is in the care of the NHS for a couple of weeks or so! Well, this is she, using the wonders of technology, to remind you all that I have not forgotten you or how to write!

I have discovered that, despite being incarcerated I am in a very interesting place, associated with bags of history - my "bag" as you may know!

The canal connection is that just down the hill is the Grand Union Canal which the deputy blogger is cruising a more northerly section of at this very moment! We did this section in narrowboat Epiphany in November 2008 - clickety click for blog and photos.

How many of you realise that Copper Mill Lock (NW Harefield) was near an actual copper mill and around here too were lime kilns.

Restored buildings beside Copper Mill Lock

Coal wharves were built around Moorhall near the Horse and Barge pub and Harefield Marina. Other industries flourished (and died) along the canal but little remains now.

Topically (or a couple of days late!), the only Englishman to become Pope apparently lived in or near Harefield. Nicolas Breakspear (later Pope Adrian lV, 1154-1159) was not a popular Pope! There is a Breakspear Road and Breakspear House and certainly the Breakspear Family lived in the original house and estate from the 13th to 15th centuries.

Harefield Hopsital has a history too - it is built on the site of an ancient house known as Rythes, later rebuilt as Bellhammonds in the early 18th century, a mansion with coach house and stables.

Mansion House today

Old stables/coach house

An expat of NSW in Austrailia bought the estate in the early 1900s and offered it to the Australian government as a military hospital in 1914. It was 1915 when the first commanding officer, orderlies and 150 patients arrived at the "Australian Hospital" and another 1000 patients were expected.

Although little more than shacks, the reputation of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) hospital grew, with many distinguished visitors. Injured men from Gallipoli and the Western Front arrived until the last days of the war and the hospital was closed in 1919.

Bought by Middlesex County Council, in 1921 Harefield hospital became a sanitorium for the treatment of TB - it is on high ground and the clean air made it an ideal location.

Harefield Hospital

It has been a centre of excellence ever since and became the "home" of the renowned Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, receiving worlwide recognition as one of the top heart and lung transplant centres, under his leadership.

St Mary's Church in the village has become the ANZAC church, with graves and memorials to the men who came to Harefield from the horrors of war. I have been told there are tunnels from here into the village and there is much more anecdotal hstory to be heard from some of the old residents of the villages. One of the nurses here comes from a family of at least three generations of "Harfieldians".

This close up may mean something to Inspector Morse fans

This is my tribute to those villagers who fought so hard to keep this lovely hospital in their village and to those who have given so many people a new chance at life - including me!