About
Headstone Manor and Museum occupies one of the most historically significant sites in the London Borough of Harrow — a fourteenth-century moated manor house, one of the oldest surviving timber-framed buildings in Middlesex, set within a park alongside a fifteenth-century Great Barn and a later Small Barn. The complex is owned and operated by the London Borough of Harrow and provides free public access to both the medieval buildings and the museum collections they house.
The manor house at Headstone dates from around 1310, when it was built as a residence for the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose estates in this part of Middlesex were managed from this property for several centuries. The moat — still water-filled today — encircles the main house site on all four sides, creating the distinctive island setting that gives Headstone its character. The manor passed through a succession of owners after the Reformation and remained a working farm into the twentieth century, accounting for the survival of the agricultural buildings alongside the medieval residence.
The Great Barn, built in the fifteenth century, is a substantial timber-framed structure of considerable architectural merit, representing the agricultural infrastructure of a prosperous medieval estate. It has been carefully conserved and now serves as an exhibition space for the museum's collections. A second, smaller barn — probably dating from the seventeenth or eighteenth century — completes the farmyard ensemble.
The museum collections tell the story of Harrow and its surrounding communities from prehistoric times to the present. Displays cover the agricultural past of Middlesex — arable farming, market gardening, and the dairy industry that supplied London — alongside the social history of Harrow as a Victorian and Edwardian suburb. Objects range from farming tools and domestic equipment to photographs, oral history recordings, and artefacts relating to the many communities that have made Harrow their home.
The site is freely accessible and forms the focal point of Headstone Manor Recreation Ground, a public park in which families, dog walkers, and sports clubs share space with the historic buildings. The combination of medieval architecture, open parkland, and local history collections makes Headstone Manor an unusual and underappreciated corner of outer London.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Tuesday, Wednesday
Busiest: Saturday, Sunday
💡 Weekday mornings for the quietest experience; summer weekends for outdoor enjoyment of the grounds
💡 Visitor Tips
- The manor house, moat, and Great Barn are the star attractions — allow enough time to walk around the moat and appreciate the medieval setting from different angles before entering the museum.
- Free parking is available in the Recreation Ground car park, making this easier to reach by car than most London museums.
- Headstone Lane station (London Overground) is only 6 minutes' walk — a very easy journey from Euston, Watford Junction, and other points on the Watford DC line.
- The Recreation Ground surrounding the manor is freely accessible at all times — the medieval buildings can be seen from the park even when the museum is closed.
- Combine a visit with Harrow-on-the-Hill (2 km by bus or taxi) to see the medieval church, Harrow School, and the hill-top views over London — a full day's outing.
- The museum is popular with local families and schools; for a quieter experience visit on a weekday morning rather than a weekend afternoon.
- The museum hosts seasonal events including medieval re-enactments and community festivals — check the website for upcoming events which often provide additional access to the manor house.
- Photography is encouraged throughout the site — the moat, timber-framed buildings, and Great Barn interior are all photogenic in good light.
Highlights
The Medieval Manor House (c.1310)
The manor house at Headstone is one of the oldest surviving timber-framed buildings in Middlesex, dating from around 1310. Built for the Archbishops of Canterbury as a residence for their Middlesex estate managers, the house retains significant medieval fabric including original timber framing, roof structure, and much of the layout of a small medieval domestic building.
The moat that surrounds it on all four sides remains water-filled, creating an authentic impression of a working medieval manor in its defensive and administrative context.
The Great Barn (15th century)
The Great Barn at Headstone is a magnificent example of late medieval agricultural architecture — a large timber-framed structure built in the fifteenth century to store the produce of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Middlesex estate. Now carefully restored and serving as the primary exhibition space for the museum, the barn retains its impressive timber roof structure and gives visitors a strong sense of the scale and ambition of a prosperous medieval agricultural operation.
Agricultural machinery and tools from later centuries are displayed within, creating a visual history of farming.
The Water-Filled Moat
The moat at Headstone Manor is one of the most complete surviving medieval moats in the London area, still water-filled and surrounding the manor house on all four sides. Moats were common features of medieval manor houses, serving both defensive and status purposes. The Headstone moat is particularly well preserved and gives the site a distinctive character among historic buildings in outer London.
The combination of water, medieval structure, and mature trees around the moat makes the setting genuinely picturesque.
Harrow Local History Collections
The museum collections in the Great Barn tell the story of Harrow and its communities from prehistoric times to the present day.
Displays cover the agricultural history of Middlesex — market gardening, dairy farming, and the supply of perishable food to Victorian London — alongside the dramatic transformation of Harrow from rural village to commuter suburb in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Objects include farming tools, domestic equipment, trade artefacts, and a significant collection of photographs documenting Harrow's changing landscape.
Collections
The Headstone Manor and Museum collections focus on the history of the London Borough of Harrow and its surrounding communities from prehistoric times to the present. Holdings include agricultural and farming equipment spanning several centuries, domestic objects and household artefacts from the Victorian and Edwardian periods, trade tools and craft objects relating to local industries, a significant photographic archive documenting the landscape and people of Harrow over more than a century, maps and documentary records, and oral history recordings from diverse communities in the borough.
The medieval buildings themselves — the manor house of c.
1310, the fifteenth-century Great Barn, and associated structures — constitute an open-air heritage collection in their own right, representing some of the most significant surviving medieval fabric in outer London.
Harrow: From Field to Suburb
The main permanent exhibition in the Great Barn tracing Harrow's history from its prehistoric and Roman origins through the medieval period, the agricultural centuries, and the dramatic Victorian transformation from rural to suburban that reshaped the area within a single generation.
📍 Great Barn, Headstone Manor
Our Harrow: Community Stories
A community-curated display exploring the diverse communities — South Asian, Irish, Afro-Caribbean, Jewish, and many others — that have shaped Harrow in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, drawing on oral histories, personal objects, and community archives.
📍 Community Gallery, Headstone Manor
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.