The Friends 2018 Tower and Turrets Tour took place on Saturday April 28th and the theme was ‘Change and Risk West of London’. The purpose of the event was to visit some of the religious and historic buildings west of London, particularly those that would be impacted by any expansion of Heathrow airport and not least have a good day out. The coach left Hornsey promptly at 9am with a tour party of 34 and our first stop was the Jordans Quaker Meeting House near Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, one of the first purpose built meeting house in the country.
After an introductory talk from the manager Nina Liebenberg the group were free to tour the building and grounds which contain the grave of William Penn (the founder of Pennsylvania in the USA). After tea at Jordans the tour moved on to the 12th century St Mary’s church at Hitcham where we were welcomed by the Church Warden Jo Trowbridge who outlined the history of the church and the extensive and imaginative modifications that have been made over the last 10 years.
This church is over 800 years old and the tower has a full set of bells that are still in regular use although the bell ringing chamber has been raised one floor to provide a children’s crèche below. Leaving Hitcham we crossed into Berkshire to visit Cookham village. The tour spent over two hours in Cookham which allowed the party to have lunch and visit both the Holy Trinity Church (possibly of Saxon origin and mentioned in the Domesday Book) and the well-known Stanley Spencer Gallery. The final stop on the tour was Harmondsworth in Middlesex which is situated north of Heathrow airport. In Harmondsworth we visited the 11th century St Mary the Virgin Church and the impressive Manor Farm Barn constructed in 1425 which is the largest timber framed medieval building in England and dubbed the ‘Cathedral of Middlesex’ by Sir John Betjeman.
Fortunately the latest Heathrow development plans will not require any demolition of historic buildings as the proposed new airport boundary will be just south of the village. We then visited the 400 year old Five Bells pub in Harmondsworth for tea and the raffle draw before heading back to North London and home. Despite the rather cool weather and tight schedule everyone enjoyed the day out and our thanks go to Adrian Skrebowski for organizing and leading the tour and also Peter Sanders for assistance in researching the various buildings visited. Finally we should thank our hosts at Jordan’s Meeting House, St Mary’s Church Hitcham, St Mary the Virgin Church and the Manor Barn Harmondsworth for their hospitality and informative talks that added greatly to the tour.
