Grove Hill,Harrow on the Hill,Middlesex. 1899 25 February. Edwin Sewell and James Richer are the first recorded driver (of a petrol vehicle) and passenger fatalities respectively. They are thrown from their Daimler on Grove Hill, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, London. [1] Reports suggest he was a 'fast' driver and when he applied the brake hard the spokes of the wooden wheel broke with the stress and the wheel collapsed with catastrophic effect. He was buried on the 3rd March at Twickenham Cemetery aged 31 years Edwin Sewell James Richer On 25 February 1899, Major James Richer, late Sergeant-Major, 3rd Rifle Brigade, was a casualty of the first recorded motor accident in Great Britain in a petrol drive car which occurred at the foot of Grove Hill, Harrow-on-the-Hill, when the Daimler Wagonette driven by Edwin Sewell overturned after the collapse of a rear wheel. Sewell was pitched out and killed whilst his passenger, Major Richer, was pinned to the ground under the car and died of his injuries on 1 March.
It is a nasty bend though! I must have passed that hundreds of times without ever stopping to read it!
For me it's the "warning" to buses about the low trees, though I suppose if there wasn't a warning there it might not be obvious ;-)
Me too. I used to attend Lowlands 6th Form College in the early 1980's and my English Literature teacher lived just up the road.