About Us
ABOUT US
Everyone is welcome at Royal British Legion Harrow Club
We are open 7 days a week and have two function rooms available to hire. We hold regular entertainment, live bands, music afternoons and nights, discos, quiz nights and bingo afternoons and evenings. EVERYONE WELCOME.
In our front bar we have pool table, darts board, three televisions showing live sport, including Sky Sports and BT Sports.
We have a wide selection of beers, spirits, real ale, ciders and soft drinks all at very reasonable club prices.
We have a darts team and pool team that play regular league matches NEW PLAYERS WELCOME.
WE ALSO HAVE A FISHING SECTION THAT HAVE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO FISH ON OUR LAKE IN STANMORE. NEW MEMBERS WELCOME.
The club has been used for filming on many occasions recently for adverts such as Coca-Cola advertising their sponsorship of premier league football and also webuyanycar.com which featured Phillip Schofield jumping out of a cake.
NEW MEMBERS ALWAYS WELCOME. Please come in and see the club and ask about joining your local friendly club or use the contact us section on this website to request details.
You don't have to be part of the armed forces community to join, everyone welcome.
A History of the Royal British Legion
(Harrow)
There has been an ex-servicemen’s club in Harrow since 1917. At first it was called "The Ivyleaf Club" and was formed by a group of war disabled servicemen who would meet regularly in the tap-room of the Three Horseshoes Public House.
This used to stand on the site now occupied by Raeburn House, only a few yards down the road from the present Legion club. They would meet to offer each other mutual support and encouragement, and no doubt to reminisce over a few pints of beer. This fact is borne out in Bartlett’s “Story of Roxeth", in which he stated that a unit of The British Legion was operating in The Three Horseshoes Public House in I918. In this context the title British Legion has been used rather loosely as The British Legion as such did not come into existence until 1921.
This group then left The Three Horseshoes and moved their meetings to The Wesley Hall in Bessborough Road. This apparently did not suit them, as they soon moved again, this time to a hut of their own at the rear of Simpkin's off-licence at Roxeth Corner, next to the Half Moon public house. (This shop subsequently became the Victoria Wine Company, and is now a plumbers shop). By now it had become known as The United Services Federation Club, and many older members still referred to the present club as "The Fed" up to the l940’s. After a while they moved yet again, this time to a round hut on the site of the present telephone exchange at the rear of the police station.
They were given an option on all the land which is now occupied by the present club, the police station, the telephone exchange, the office blocks and the garage on the roundabout at the bottom of Roxeth Hill. This site was regularly used by the Harrow Hospital for its annual carnival and fetes.
Eventually an ex-army hut was purchased and erected at the bottom of the site where the club stands today. This hut was used until the present premises were built. At first the bar walls were of rough brick, the wooden panels there today being added later. The floor was laid by the same Italian craftsmen who worked on the members’ room and bar under the grandstand of the Northolt Park Racecourse.
The present club was erected in 1927 with the aid of a mortgage from Well's Brewers of Watford, and was built by Harry Neal Ltd. It was designed in a Dutch style by the architect Mr. S. Pointin-Taylor, who gave his services free of charge. The ceiling of the main bar was originally beamed, but that has since been covered by a suspended ceiling, but upstairs in "The Barn" bar the beams have been left exposed. With a large tiled fireplace, an iron basket type fire (which was often lit in winter when the boiler broke down), the club had a very “Dutch” atmosphere.
At the outbreak of the war in 1939 the Queen Victoria's Rifles (a territorial unit from Westminster) were billeted in the hall. The Northolt Park Racecourse was also requisitioned, and many servicemen posted to the area became members of the club. Due to the shortage of beer and spirits, the bar was only open for a short time in the evenings and one bottle of spirits could be put out for sale at the discretion of the committee. Two nips of brandy could be supplied only on the production of a doctor's certificate. The government introduced a “no treating order" which caused many hold-ups with the service at the bar.
On Sunday mornings buttonhole competitions were held to create interest in the club flower shows. The proceeds of which went to the children's party fund or other club benevolent funds. Midnight matinees were held in the Dominion Cinema, which was hired after normal hours, to raise Funds for The Poppy Appeal. A West End artiste would act as compere, and many famous names of the stage and screen appeared on these occasions. There was also a British Legion Brass Band which played at the Harrow School Speech Day and various other functions.
A President’s Cup was awarded to the member responsible for enrolling the highest number of new members in any one year. There used to be at rifle range at the rear of the premises, but when the timber construction became dilapidated, this was pulled down.
During the war some “doodle-bugs” and fire bombs landed in the area around the club, but the building itself received only minor damage.
At Christmas a piano would be placed in the main bar. This added greatly to the enjoyment of the carol singers but not to a silent night. There was a radio in the window on the right hand side of the fireplace but this was eventually removed when a television set was installed in the club. In the passageway between the front bar and the concert hall, there used to be a large painting of the crowds celebrating in Whitehall on the Declaration of War on August 4th 1914. Some of the beers were drawn from wooden barrels which stood on trestles where the bottle shelving is now fitted.
Over the years there have been many humorous incidents that members can recall. One concerns a member who was slow in paying up his annual subscription, and who was constantly being pressed by the secretary to pay up. One morning he waited until the secretary had been to the bank to pay in the money he had collected and then approached him with one of the old white five pound notes in his hand. The secretary said “You know I can't change that, I've only just been to the bank". At this he turned to the members around him and complained “Do you see that, when I want to pay him he won‘t take it".
Invariably on a Saturday and Sunday morning members who took their dogs out for a walk, would bring them into the bar while they had a pint or two. As a result of the dogs barking and snarling at other members and fighting with each other, the committee were eventually forced to bar dogs from the premises. Shortly afterwards a member turned up with a lamb on the end of a piece of rope. When he was asked to take the bleating lamb outside he kept insisting “but you have only barred dogs, anyone can see that I haven’t brought a dog in here", and he stuck to his guns until he was ready to leave.
Today of course, things are very different. The club has had .a number of major modernisations and redecorations to the highest possible standards. It is without doubt one of the biggest and best Royal British Legion Clubs in the country and it is renowned for its hospitality to other branches from far and wide.
It has every intention of continuing to provide facilities for the ex-service people of Harrow and their families to enjoy their social activities into the next millennium and beyond, but more importantly of continuing to live up to its motto of “Service not Self“ and to ensure that no ex-service person or their families are without a place to turn to for help in their hour of need.
