Pinner


Pinner is an area in Greater London, in the borough of Harrow, lying northwest from Charing Cross. It is within the bounds of the historic county of Middlesex, and located close to the border with the borough of Hillingdon. The population of Pinner, which includes Pinner Green, Hatch End and Pinnerwood, was 31,130 as of 2011.

History

Pinner was originally a hamlet, first recorded in 1231 as Pinnora, although the already archaic -ora suggests its origins lie no later than c.900. The name Pinn is shared with the River Pinn, which runs through the middle of Pinner.
The oldest part of the town lies around the fourteenth-century parish church of St. John the Baptist, at the junction of the present day Grange Gardens, The High Street and Church Lane. The earliest surviving private dwelling, East End Farm Cottage, dates from the late fifteenth-century.
The village expanded rapidly between 1923 and 1939 when a series of garden estates, including the architecturally significant Pinnerwood estate conservation area – encouraged by the Metropolitan Railway – grew around its historic core. It was largely from this time onwards that the area assumed much of its present-day suburban character. The area is now continuous with neighbouring suburban districts including Rayners Lane and Eastcote.
Pinner contains a large number of homes built in the 1930s Art Deco style, the most grand of which is the Grade II listed Elm Park Court at the junction of West End Lane and Elm Park Road.
Pinner has had an annual street fair held in May since 1336, when it was granted by Royal Charter by Edward III;. Pinner is one of few places in the United Kingdom that still holds an annual fair.

Governance

Harrow Council has been governed by the Labour Party since 2014. Pinner has two wards, Pinner and Pinner South, each represented by three councillors.
Pinner is in the Brent and Harrow constituency for the London Assembly which has been represented since 2008 by Navin Shah. Since the 2010 general election, Pinner has been part of the Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner parliamentary constituency, most recently represented by Nick Hurd.

Demography

Pinner is both a religiously and culturally mixed area, with the ethnic minority population having grown significantly since the 1970s. Pinner ward nonetheless had the highest concentration of people describing themselves as white in the London Borough of Harrow, at 62 per cent of the population in 2011. In 2013 the Pinner South ward had the next highest proportion of white people at 59.4 per cent. Various churches and a synagogue serve the religious needs of the community.

Parish Church

Pinner's St John the Baptist parish church was consecrated in 1321, but built on the site of an earlier Christian place of worship. The west tower and south porch date from the 15th century.

Transport

Rail

is on the Metropolitan line in zone 5.
Hatch End is a national rail station.

Buses

Neighbouring communities

Pinner includes Pinner Village at its centre, along with the localities of Pinner Green and Pinnerwood Park Conservation Area to the north. To the north east is the larger area of Hatch End.

In popular culture

The Pinner fair held in Pinner High Street features in John Betjeman's 1973 BBC film, Metro-Land. The BBC sitcom May to December was set in Pinner, and its exterior shots were recorded in the High Street. During the 1990s the children's TV series of Aquila was filmed in and around Pinner, particularly at the local Cannon Lane School. Chucklevision, the Children's TV series based on the Chuckle Brothers also filmed in Pinner. The film Nowhere Boy had a number of scenes filmed in Pinner, including outside the Queens Head Pub, Pinner High street, and on Woodhall Gate, which stood in for John Lennon's childhood home. Pinner has also been used for the BBC sitcom My Hero and the Channel 4 sitcom The Inbetweeners. Filming for the movie The Theory of Everything took place outside the St John the Baptist Church on Pinner High Street. The 2012 film, May I Kill U? Written and directed by Stuart Urban; starring Kevin Bishop was also filmed in Pinner.
Episode 5 of Season 3 of the British black comedy-drama spy thriller television series Killing Eve is titled ‘Are you from Pinner?’

Literature

makes reference to Pinner in More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc:

There was an old person of Pinner,

As thin as a lath, if not thinner;

They dressed him in white,

And roll'd him up tight,

That elastic old person of Pinner.

H. G. Wells mentions Pinner in War of the Worlds:

He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the Martian advance.

Sport and leisure

Pinner has a rugby union team, Pinner and Grammarians RFC, a member club of the Rugby Football Union. It is the most junior team to have supplied a President to the RFU. Pinner also has a cricket team, Pinner Cricket Club and a youth football club, Pinner United FC. The area also has a golf course, Pinner Golf course.
In addition to numerous restaurants and a number of public houses, Pinner also has an amateur theatre group, Pinner Players, who have been performing in the area since 1936 and currently stage productions at Pinner Village Hall off Chapel Lane.

Notable people