Brent Heritage Tours and Trails: Welsh Harp Past and Present

A waterfront oasis in the heart of Brent, the park surrounding the Welsh Harp reservoir is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Join us online to explore the rich history of the reservoir, its flora and fauna, as well as opportunities for recreation and sports. The talk is lavishly illustrated with historic images, maps and present day photographs.
Developed and presented by Irina Porter, Blue Badge London guide with a life-long passion for local history. Irina is Chair and Journal Editor of the Willesden Local History Society.
This talk is part of Being Brent - Heritage for Health and Wellbeing, a project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and delivered by Brent Museum and Archives.

[@johnbutler3141]

Great show and presentation. I grew up in Burnt Oak and can remember the Welsh Harp well. I left in 1977 and now in South Africa.

[@MrRawMonkey]

I was born in 1957 and I used to live at 24 Stuart Avenue and lived there until I was around 10 years old. Being on a hill my bedroom had a clear view of of the Welsh Harp.
My mum and dad would take me there via Cool Oak Lane bridge. I can remember the Handley Page sailing club, as my father worked for Handley Page at Cricklewood before we all moved to Bushey when my father transferred to Handley Page Radlett where the company had an airfield.
I can remember the winter of 63 when the snow touched the top of the gate posts and the bottled milk would freeze solid on the doorsteps pushing the foil tops clear off the top of the bottles. I would get frightened watching my dad walk onto the ice of the Welsh Harp.
I can also remember seeing the lights of the funfair held on the opposite bank from my bedroom.
I had a friend who lived at 19 Stuart Avenue. From his back garden we would throw fruit that dropped from the trees at the Chelsea FC junior football team that trained there.
This from the clubs website:
One keystone remained: since 1949 the Chelsea Juniors centre was located on playing fields adjoining Brent Reservoir, near Staples Corner in Hendon, known universally as the Welsh Harp, from which a pub there also took its name.
In some ways it was an inspirational setting, with the imposing twin towers of Wembley Stadium abstractedly reflected in its choppy waters and showing what might be around the corner if you played your cards right. It was, though, rather rough and ready, as the novelist Bryan Stanley Johnson, a Chelsea supporter and triallist, discovered in 1950.
‘I travelled on the top deck of a trolleybus all the long way up the straight length of the Edgware Road to the Welsh Harp at Hendon,’ he later recalled, ‘where I changed in the pub and then played badly and dispiritedly on Chelsea’s practice pitch at the back. They talked to one or two of the better players, and told the rest of us we would be hearing if they wanted us. I never heard.’
He was not alone. Up to 300 hopefuls would attended trials, and just a handful were selected to attend the Welsh Harp training sessions on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, as well as summer camps.
‘The Welsh Harp training ground was a Spartan experience, particularly in the heart of winter,’ recalled Peter Bonetti, who joined the scheme in 1958. ‘It was very cold there, one of the coldest spots I have ever encountered, often very wet.’
Finally, I can remember my mother telling me how the house was bomb damage in the war, as the ceilings came down. This was before my parents moved in.