On 25 April 2019 Rt. Hon Baroness Shami Chakrabarti CBE PC officially reopened the Harrow branch following extensive refurbishment.
The branch’s refurbishment has provided improved modern facilities for families and staff, including an extended reception area, comfortable and informal arranging room, an extended Chapel of Rest, as well as complete redecoration and new furnishings.
The branch opened in the 1950s and is the oldest remaining business in the parade of shops on Streatfield Road.
Originally W H Putnam only had half of the premises, the other half was a hairdresser, before that it had been a pet food shop.
To mark the refurbishment of the branch, Funeral Arranger Samantha Wraight invited members of the local community to the re-opening. Baroness Chakrabarti, who was born and brought up in Harrow, cut the ribbon and Monsignor Martin Hayes, Vicar General of Westminster Diocese, blessed the Chapel of Rest.
W H Putnam’s Harrow branch is remembered in a popular memoir, The Father I Had, written by journalist Martin Townsend about growing up in north London with his father.
