St Dominic's students dig up Harrow on the Hill's lost tower

Students at St Dominic’s Sixth Form College have been digging in their own grounds for a tower that was knocked down in 1968. The same mound may once have carried a beacon lit to warn of the Spanish Armada.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund, which paid for the project, featured it on 23 September as one of the projects it has funded.

What is under the lawn

The college is on Mount Park Avenue, Harrow on the Hill. The Heritage Fund says local histories place an Elizabethan Armada beacon on a mound that is now part of the college. A late 18th-century tower later stood on the same spot, until it was demolished in 1968.

The college’s Classics department set out what the dig had found in its listing for the 2025 Festival of Archaeology:

• the foundations of the tower, a neo-Gothic folly built in the grounds of a large estate before the convent school arrived
• the remains of what may have been outbuildings next to it
• what appears to have been a kiln or bread oven
• small finds dating from the early medieval period to the modern day

The college said the finds gave “a strong indication that the site was indeed occupied during the 15-16th centuries”. That is the period of the Armada, in 1588, though no find has yet been reported as proof of the beacon itself.

Who took part

The project was free, and was open to students from local schools as well as the college. The Heritage Fund says the college set it up because young people from Harrow’s diverse communities rarely get the chance to consider archaeology as a career.

Field schools with a local archaeology company taught practical skills, including:

• GPS and geophysical surveying
• archaeological photography and drawing
• identifying finds

One young participant told the Heritage Fund she had learnt “how to do new things”, including scanning the ground to see what lay beneath.

Louis Leeves, the college’s Head of Classics and the project lead, said the Heritage Fund’s support meant the activities could be free “so that we could include people from all different types of backgrounds”.

“The project was received with great enthusiasm by the students,” he said.

Headstone Manor’s part

The project reached beyond the college gates. Public lectures and events were run with Headstone Manor and Museum, and a Festival of Archaeology day in 2025 was aimed at young children and families.

That open day, on Saturday 19 July 2025, let visitors try supervised digging in one of the tower’s wall-line trenches. Headstone Manor ran activities on site. The museum was shortlisted for a national award earlier this month for its own Stories of Harrow work.

The Heritage Fund’s project page does not give the size of the grant.

What it means for you

The Heritage Fund offers grants for community heritage projects in Harrow and elsewhere, starting from £10,000. Schools, museums and community groups can apply.

The college posts its dig updates on YouTube under the name “beaconproject40”, and the Heritage Fund’s project page carries a short film of the students at work.

Sources: National Lottery Heritage Fund, project page, 23 September 2026; Council for British Archaeology, Festival of Archaeology listing, 2025.