Growth after 1850.
Despite a rising population
in the late 19th century, largely around Childs Hill
and Brent Street, much of Hendon was unchanged
until the Hampstead tube reached Golders Green in
1907 and Edgware in 1924. (fn. 84) Growth after 1850
therefore took place in two stages: the first, before
the coming of the Underground, saw the expansion
of some of the old hamlets and the creation of
railway settlements, while the second saw most of
the parish covered by suburban housing.
Brent Street, a 'genteel hamlet' in 1876, (fn. 85) became
the leading shopping district in the late 19th
century. (fn. 86) New Brent Street, with its terraced and
semi-detached houses, was built between 1843 and
1863, and included a post office, a police station, and
a school opposite the junction with Bell Lane. (fn. 87)
The area around Church Road, which connected
Brent Street with Church End, was also covered
with houses after Hendon station was opened in
1868. Fuller Street was built before 1874 (fn. 88) and nearby terraces, including Heading Street and Prince of
Wales Road, were built at about that time. (fn. 89) The
northern limit of housing was marked by Sunningfields Road, Sunny Gardens Road, and Sunningfields
Crescent, the last of which was laid out in 1882 and
built up at the end of the century. (fn. 90) East of Brent
Street, small houses lined Victoria, Stratford, and
Belle Vue roads by 1899. (fn. 91) A statement in 1876 that
Hendon had recently come to look like any other
suburban or railway village (fn. 92) applied to Church
Road, Brent Street, and Finchley Lane, rather than
to Church End, whose remoteness from the main
roads allowed it to remain relatively unchanged until
the 1960s.
North of Brent Street, large houses continued to
be built in and around Parson Street. (fn. 93) Many of
them, hidden by high walls and plantations and
presenting a marked contrast to the humbler terraces
lower down the hill, were built on the Hendon Place
estate during the occupancy of a Mr. Somerville, who
laid out Waverley Grove and Tenterden Grove after
1863. (fn. 94) Thirty-five acres of the estate were bought by
C. F. Hancock of Hendon Hall, who built several
houses, (fn. 95) as did a Mr. Prachitt, who came to live in
Fuller Street in 1877. (fn. 96) Down House and other 18thcentury houses made way for the new buildings,
several of which were themselves later replaced by
smaller dwellings and luxury flats. Those houses
which survived in 1970 gave the area its character of
tree-shaded Victorian opulence: among them were
Westhorpe, an Italianate brick building in a derelict
state, Nazareth House, known in 1902 as St.
Swithins, a large brick house with a crenellated
tower, extended c. 1900 to the designs of George
Hornblower, (fn. 97) and the Towers, formerly Ivy
Tower, (fn. 98) adorned with gables and turrets.
Away from Brent Street the fastest growth in the
mid 19th century took place at Childs Hill, which
was linked with near-by Hampstead. Terraces of
artisans' houses sprang up along Cricklewood Lane
near the Red Lion, in the Mead (later Granville
Road), and near the Castle inn. (fn. 99) By 1863 a school
and All Saints church had been built in the village
and other streets, including the Ridge (later Ridge
Road), had been laid out; the population of the
parish of All Saints rose from 906 in 1861 to 2,138
in 1871 and 5,525 in 1891. (fn. 1) To the east, around
West Heath Road on the slopes of Hampstead
Heath, some large houses were built between 1863
and 1897, (fn. 2) several of which were standing in 1970.
North of Childs Hill, however, open country survived the coming of the Underground in 1907, when
Lyndale Avenue (fn. 3) and other roads were built on land
belonging to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. (fn. 4)
The growth of modern Cricklewood began after
the opening of Childs Hill (later Cricklewood) station
in 1868, when the 'railway village', terraced cottages
for Midland railway employees, was built between
the railway and Edgware Road. (fn. 5) After a pause small
houses spread north from Kilburn and Brondesbury,
until by 1897 they had been built in Elm Grove,
Yew Grove, and Ash Grove, south of Cricklewood
Lane; St. Peter's church and school were opened
at about that time, when housing began to creep up
Cricklewood Lane towards Cowhouse Green and
Childs Hill. (fn. 6) Rockhall Terrace, large houses in
Edgware Road dating from before 1863, (fn. 7) was
demolished in 1905, and the shopping centre of
Cricklewood Broadway was built near the terminus
for trams from the west end of London. (fn. 8) In 1908
the Hendon part of Cricklewood was much less
built up than the area west of Edgware Road.
Thorverton, Caddington, and Dersingham roads
were laid out in 1907 (fn. 9) but much of the land remained
empty along Cricklewood Lane, leading to Childs
Hill, until after the First World War. (fn. 10) Cowhouse
Farm survived until 1932. (fn. 11)
The Midland Railway made its greatest impact on
the western part of the parish, where, apart from
Cricklewood, the only hamlets were at the Hyde,
Colindeep, and the Hale. A small group of houses at
Burnt Oak was under construction in 1863, presumably to serve the new Redhill workhouse; the
houses occupied North, South, and East roads,
which formed a square with Edgware Road. (fn. 12) A
school and a church were built near by at the end of
the 19th century but the area remained rural until
the L.C.C.'s Watling estate was laid out in 1924-7. (fn. 13)
To the south a new suburb called West Hendon
grew up near Hendon station, opened in 1868 amid
fields at the foot of Burroughs Lane (later Station
Road). Streets of terraced houses stretching west
from Edgware Road to Brent reservoir had been
partially completed by 1897, while Herbert, Wilberforce, and Algernon roads were laid out to the east. (fn. 14)
West Hendon expanded after the opening of
Schweppes's mineral water factory in 1895. Deerfield
Cottages were built for Schweppes's employees (fn. 15) and
by 1914 small houses had spread up the hill towards
the Burroughs on the Neeld family's estate, (fn. 16) in and
around Vivian Avenue, Audley Road, and Graham
Road. (fn. 17) Building also spread north to the Hyde and
to Colindale, a suburban outpost near the old
hamlet of Colindeep, where terraces were built in
Colindale and Annesley avenues between 1897 and
1914, (fn. 18) presumably because of the near-by hospital,
Public Health laboratory, and tramway depot. Open
country, however, stretched south from West
Hendon to Cricklewood railway sidings in 1914,
while the badly drained ground on the Kingsbury
border never attracted housing; Reets Farm
survived in 1929, (fn. 19) and the area was occupied by a
park, playing fields, a nursery, and allotment
gardens in 1970.
The railway did little to affect Mill Hill, whose
ward had a population of only 4,414 in 1911, com
pared with Central ward's 17,776 and Childs Hill's
16,616. (fn. 20) After the opening of the G.N.R.'s Mill Hill
station (later Mill Hill East) in 1867 a few terraced
cottages and a public house grew up near the gasworks at the foot of Bittacy Hill, but the poor train
service failed to attract commuters. The Midland,
too, seemed uninterested in suburban growth: fields
stretched around its station (later called Mill Hill
Broadway) until well into the 20th century, although
between 1897 and 1913 some new streets, including
Langley Park, Sylvan Avenue, and Brockenhurst
Gardens, were laid out near by (fn. 21) and the nucleus of
the shopping centre in Mill Hill Broadway (then
still known as Lawrence Street) was built c. 1910. (fn. 22)
Abortive plans were made in 1910 for a village,
resembling Hampstead Garden Suburb, on 50 a.
north-west of the Midland Railway station. (fn. 23) Some
large villas were built along Hale Lane in the late
19th century, (fn. 24) but the Hale itself remained apart
until the 1920s. The one early attempt at large-scale
building failed, probably because of inadequate
public transport. In 1878 the Birkbeck Building
Society and the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society
laid out plots for 500 small houses in the angle
between Daws Lane and Hammers Lane. (fn. 25) The
first houses were built in Tennyson Road in 1879
but buyers hung back and the society finally
collapsed in 1910. (fn. 26) There were many vacant plots
on the estate in 1897 (fn. 27) and some as late as 1954. (fn. 28)
Religious communities first reached the old
village of Mill Hill in 1871, when St. Joseph's
college was opened near the top of Lawrence
Street. (fn. 29) Other institutions followed and Mill Hill
school began to expand at the end of the century,
but the area remained free of dense housing.
Residences at the tops of Bittacy Hill and Milespit
Hill included the Priory and another house, possibly
Parkfield, both built c. 1875 to designs by T. E.
Colcutt in the tile-hung Norman Shaw manner, (fn. 30)
and Wentworth House, west of Bittacy House, a
gabled building with a cupola designed by W. E.
and F. Brown c. 1891. (fn. 31) In the 1890s James C.
Marshall established, in conjunction with the Linen
and Woollen Drapers' Institution, a Cottage Home
for retired members of the drapery trade. At first
the home comprised 61 dwellings but after extensions
in 1927 and 1961 it provided accommodation and
full medical facilities for 250 people on both sides
of Hammers Lane. (fn. 32) The original cottages, designed
by George Hornblower and dating from 1898, form
three sides of a courtyard; the central block, in the
Jacobean manner, contains a hall with an open
timber roof and is surmounted by a cupola. (fn. 33) Shortly
before 1910 the Inglis barracks replaced Bittacy
farm, although the farm-house survived in 1936. (fn. 34)
The barracks were occupied in 1970 by the Royal
Engineers, for whom large extensions had been
carried out in 1968. (fn. 35) In Frith Lane farther to the
east Nether Court, the largest Victorian house in
Hendon, was built to the neo-Jacobean designs of
Percy Stone in 1883. (fn. 36) Most 20th-century buildings
along the Ridgeway, including Watchtower House
and cottages built on the site of the Angel and
Crown, are of modest height, although the neoGeorgian headquarters of the National Institute of
Medical Research, designed by Maxwell Ayrton
and opened in 1950, (fn. 37) is an exception.
The Underground gave rise to two distinct kinds
of housing, the one idealistic in conception and carefully planned, the other commercially inspired and
similar to scores of other suburban developments.
The first kind is instanced in Hampstead Garden
Suburb, built on part of Eton College's estate (fn. 38) to
the east of Finchley Road. In 1905 a committee was
formed at the instigation of Henrietta, afterwards
Dame Henrietta, Barnett (1851-1936), the social
reformer, to buy 80 a. as an extension to Hampstead
Heath; later in that year, in expectation of the
coming of the railway, the rest of the estate, totalling
243 a. east of Finchley Road and north of Golders
Hill, was bought by the Hampstead Garden Suburb
Trust for development on lines laid down by Mrs.
Barnett. (fn. 39) Building was begun in 1907, near
Asmuns Hill, by independent groups, (fn. 40) although
the Hampstead Garden Suburb Act of 1906 (fn. 41)
enabled the character of the area to be determined
by the trustees and their architects, Raymond
Unwin and R. B. Parker, with Sir Edwin Lutyens
as consultant. There were directions on the density
of housing, the width of the streets, and the use of
trees and building materials. The first major contractors included the Garden Suburb Development
Co. and the Improved Industrial Dwellings Co. but
many smaller houses were built by Hampstead
Tenants Ltd. and Second Hampstead Tenants Ltd.,
collective enterprises financed by tenants' shares and
outside contributions, which, it was hoped, would
extend house-ownership to persons of smaller
means. (fn. 42) The trustees themselves built the institute
in Central Square and some cottages. In 1911 another
411 a., extending into Finchley, were leased from the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. (fn. 43) That part of the
Suburb was built after the First World War, with
J. C. S. Soutar as chief planner, while Hampstead
Heath Extension Tenants Ltd., Oakwood Tenants
Ltd., and other bodies joined the original contractors. (fn. 44)
The lay-out of the Suburb is similar to that
employed by Parker and Unwin at Letchworth
(Herts.) some ten years earlier, with winding roads,
many trees, and a diversity of styles and materials.
The focal point, Central Square, occupies a hill
and consists of large brick neo-Georgian houses
around an open space containing the church of
St. Jude-on-the-Hill, the Free church, and, between
them, the institute, all designed by Lutyens. (fn. 45)
Henrietta Barnett lived in no. 1 South Square from
1915 until her death. (fn. 46) Most of the houses elsewhere
are terraced or semi-detached and many are grouped
in closes. Other buildings included artisans' flats in
Addison Way and a quadrangle of houses for the
aged, called the Orchard, both designed by Unwin,
and a quadrangle of flats for single working women
called Waterlow Court, designed by Baillie Scott in
1909. On the edge of the estate, at Temple Fortune,
two impressive blocks of shops and flats, of Germanic
appearance, with steeply-pitched roofs and towers,
were designed by Unwin, who also designed the
club house in Willifield Way, destroyed in the
Second World War. Several architects, including
W. Curtis Green, E. Guy Dawber, C. M. Crickmer,
and Geoffrey Lucas, were employed but at first
there was a prevailing style, derived from vernacular
building and emphasizing the choice of materials.
Neo-Georgian designs, however, were chosen by
Lutyens, C. Cowles Voysey, and others c. 1912 and
became usual for larger houses after the First
World War. Since the part of the Suburb which lay
in Hendon was substantially complete by 1914, most
later building took place beyond the boundary,
where the eastern extension was served by a shopping
centre in Lyttelton Way, Finchley.
Hampstead Garden Suburb was planned for
people of widely varying incomes and in that respect
differed both from earlier ventures like Bournville (fn. 47)
or Port Sunlight, originally the products of industrial paternalism, and from later council estates.
Idealism produced buildings which ranged from
large detached houses overlooking the Heath
Extension to small cottages and flats near Temple
Fortune in the north. In practice, however, manual
workers were forced out by rising prices and rents,
until the suburb became middle-class. Central
Square provided facilities of an improving nature
but atrophied as a result of the banishment of all
shops, public houses, and amusements to the fringes
of the estate, at Temple Fortune and Finchley.
Despite its failure as a social experiment the Suburb
embodied one of the most influential housing
schemes of its time in England and contrasted
strongly with the rest of 20th-century Hendon.
At Golders Green, a straggling hamlet in 1901, (fn. 48)
new houses were built at the corner of Wentworth
Road and Hoop Lane in 1905. Two years later the
arrival of the Underground started a building boom
in houses whose rustic appearance was to set a
trend for suburban exteriors over the next three
decades. Growth continued until after the First
World War: the new Golders Green ward, covering
an area with a population of 4,465 in 1911, had
7,518 people by 1921 and 17,837 by 1931. (fn. 49) Work
began on 85½ a. near Woodstock House in 1906 (fn. 50)
and the Finchley Road and Golders Green Syndicate
began to build an estate south of Temple Fortune,
including Templars Avenue and Wentworth Road,
in 1907. (fn. 51) In the same year work started on the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners' land south of Golders
Green station, and Rodborough and Hodford roads
were laid out, (fn. 52) whereupon housing spread south
towards Childs Hill. Prominent among those responsible was Sir Edwin Evans, 'the Napoleon of
suburban development', who worked on the Woodstock estate and elsewhere in conjunction with local
firms, like those of Ernest Owers and Farrow and
Howkins. (fn. 53) The old villas in their large gardens
disappeared: in 1909 Golders Lodge was demolished
and Golders Gardens, Gainsborough Gardens, and
Powis Gardens were built on its site. (fn. 54) At Golders
Green cross-roads, near the Underground station,
rows of shops were under construction in 1911-12 (fn. 55)
on a site which in 1904 had been deserted; (fn. 56)
churches, chapels, a theatre, a cinema, and a large
shopping centre followed. After the First World
War, most of the remaining villas in Golders Green
Road were replaced by semi-detached houses and
large blocks of luxury flats, such as Brook Lodge
and Riverside Drive. (fn. 57) Houses were also built
north and west of Temple Fortune, work beginning
on Eastfield Crescent, Cranbourne Gardens, and
Park Way in 1924. (fn. 58) Many of the new houses at
Golders Green were bought by middle-class Jews,
who opened their first synagogue in 1922 (fn. 59) and
became the forerunners of a large Jewish population.
Change in the agricultural north-west began in
1910, when Claude Grahame-White acquired a field
near Colindale from which Louis Paulhan had set
off for the first flight from London to Manchester
in one day. (fn. 60) The field became part of Hendon
Aerodrome which soon covered 207 a. In 1912
Grahame-White moved into Orange Hill House, a
short distance to the north, (fn. 61) and by 1914 had made
Hendon by skilful advertising one of the four leading
airfields in the country and a major centre for the
training of pilots. He also attracted thousands of
visitors, for whom were provided a club-house, a
30-bedroomed hotel, and five enclosures for
viewing. (fn. 62) Hendon witnessed several landmarks in
the history of British aviation: an experimental
aerial postal service was inaugurated there in 1911
and the first aerial Derby was held in 1912. (fn. 63) In
1914 the airfield was requisitioned for training by
the Royal Naval Air Service and aircraft production
was increased, but with the coming of peace
Grahame-White resumed the development of its
recreational side. The R.A.F. staged its first pageant
there in 1920 and took the airport over completely
in 1922. As a military airport (fn. 64) Hendon continued
to draw large crowds in the period between the two
World Wars. During the Second World War
fighter aircraft were stationed at Hendon until 1940,
after which the airport was used solely for transport
and training. It was closed to flying in 1957, when
the R.A.F. metropolitan communications squadron
was transferred to Northolt, but remained in use by
ground units. (fn. 65) In 1973 an R.A.F. museum opened
on part of the site. (fn. 66)
In 1917 Claude Grahame-White planned housing
for 300 employees, in the vain belief that Hendon
would become 'the Charing Cross of our international air routes'. Simple terraced cottages,
designed by Henry Matthews, were built around a
square called Aeroville and some were occupied by
1919. (fn. 67) Handley Page established an airport at
Claremont Road, Cricklewood, in 1912. (fn. 68) It was
used by Handley Page Transport from 1919, and
later also by Imperial Airways, for passenger flights
to the Continent. Surrounding building so restricted
expansion that the airfield was closed in 1929,
whereupon the site was rapidly covered with houses
or converted to playing fields. (fn. 69)
Aircraft production during the First World War
hastened the growth of Colindale and the Hyde.
Rows of small terraced and semi-detached houses
continued to be built between the airport and
Edgware Road after the factories had turned over to
peacetime production. (fn. 70) Industry, restricted by
Hendon U.D.C's determination not to offend
owner-occupiers, (fn. 71) spread south along either side of
Edgware Road towards Cricklewood after parts of
the Brent reservoir had been reclaimed in 1921.
The beginning of work on the North Circular Road
in 1924 acted as a further impetus, until by the
Second World War factories, second-hand car
depots, and rubbish dumps, interspersed with blocks
of flats, small shops, and houses, stretched from
Cricklewood almost to Burnt Oak and Edgware.
The British Museum's newspaper repository was
opened in a new building in Colindale Avenue in
1932. (fn. 72)
Growth east of Edgware Road awaited the
extension of the Underground through Hendon
Central to Edgware and the building of arterial
roads. All the new stations, except Colindale, were
in open country (fn. 73) but the Underground group at
once advertised 'little palaces' at Colindale, (fn. 74) and
in 1923 the large Moat Mount estate in the north
was said to be ready for development. (fn. 75) Hendon
Way and the North Circular Road helped to open
up the land west of Golders Green. At the southern
end of Hendon Way, at Childs Hill, three large
blocks of private flats, called Vernon Court,
Wendover Court, and Moreland Court, with mockTudor timbering, were erected after the opening of
the road in 1927. (fn. 76) Farther north the Vale, which ran
from near Cricklewood to Golders Green, was being
laid out in 1924, as was Renters Avenue, near Brent
Underground station. (fn. 77) Houses were still being
built in Shirehall Lane and neighbouring streets
near the river Brent in 1928 by Messrs. Haymills,
who were responsible for several estates in the
area. (fn. 78) Council houses were built in 1924 on the
Brent Farm estate around Sturgess Avenue, (fn. 79) and
a larger estate was under construction at the Hyde
in 1927. (fn. 80)
A roundabout and roads were constructed near
Hendon Central station in 1923, where Watford
Way crossed Queen's Road (formerly Butcher's
Lane). As at Golders Green, motor-bus routes
terminated in the station forecourt, close to a new
shopping centre. Shops were spreading from Central
Circus to the Burroughs in 1928 (fn. 81) and some semidetached houses were built near Watford Way,
although the land west of the road was covered by
the Hendon Aerodrome. Building was approved on
part of the Hancock estate, near Sunny Gardens
Road, in 1924 (fn. 82) and was also about to begin on the
site of Ashley Farm, west of Holders Hill Road, in
1929. (fn. 83) Holders Hill Road itself was lined with
expensive houses and blocks of flats. (fn. 84) Beyond
Great North Way, however, Copthall playing field,
Hendon golf course, and Hendon Park cemetery
together constituted a large open tract which, with
the airfield, still separated the north of the parish
from the south in 1970. Houses covered all the
remaining spaces in the south before 1935, (fn. 85) apart
from some low-lying land near the Brent, which
included the area south of the old U.D.C. sewage
works by the North Circular Road. (fn. 86) The Ecclesiastical Commissioners refused to allow building at
Cowhouse Farm because of bad drainage and it was
sold to University College school as a sports
ground. (fn. 87)
North of Hendon Central the railway passed
through Colindale, which served the factories along
Edgware Road, to Burnt Oak, which was surrounded
by farm-land in 1924. (fn. 88) Here the L.C.C. purchased
390 a., including Goldbeaters farm, for their
Watling estate. The first residents arrived in 1927
and the estate was completed by 1931, when there
were 4,021 houses and flats. (fn. 89) In 1937 its population,
drawn mainly from Islington and St. Pancras, was
19,012, compared with a population of 1,016 in
Burnt Oak ward in 1921. (fn. 90) The estate was designed
by G. Topham Forrest, (fn. 91) architect to the L.C.C.,
who relied much on the design of earlier garden
suburbs: houses of tarred weatherboarding, roughcast or brick, many of them sheltered by older
trees, formed winding streets and closes, inter
spersed with small parks. Watling Avenue, leading
to Burnt Oak station, became the chief shopping
centre of the estate, and a market was built off
Barnfield Road.
North and west of the Watling estate the remaining farm-land was slowly covered by private semidetached houses in the 1920s and 1930s. Building
was stimulated not only by the Underground but
also by the opening of Watford Way and the Barnet
and Edgware by-pass roads in 1927. The Stoneyfields estate, north of the Hale, was sold for building
in 1924 (fn. 92) and Upper and Lower Hale farms were
sold in 1925, (fn. 93) when Hale and Selvage lanes were
widened. (fn. 94) Fewer than 400 houses had been built by
1928, when the Elmgate Gardens estate was planned,
although roads which included Downhurst Avenue
and Sunbury Gardens had been laid out. (fn. 95) Shops at
the Hale were also planned in 1928, when firms
intended to build on nearly all the land near by; (fn. 96)
they included Upper Hale Estates and Streather
Estates. (fn. 97) In 1932 John Groom's Crippleage,
founded in Clerkenwell in 1866, moved to new
premises for 120 crippled women in Edgware
Way. (fn. 98) By 1935 (fn. 99) continuous building had spread as
far north as the Moat Mount golf course. (fn. 1)
East of the former Midland Railway's main line
suburban growth was slower than at the Hale,
chiefly because of the distance from Underground
stations. The Broadway, near Mill Hill Broadway
station, became a major shopping centre between
the two World Wars: in 1930 the site of Bunn's
Farm was being built upon and there were plans for
the area around Lawrence Street. (fn. 2) Large detached
houses were erected in Uphill Road and Tretawn
Gardens in 1924 (fn. 3) and covered much of the area
south of Marsh Lane by 1935. (fn. 4) The streets farther
north did not appear until after the Second World
War and a large tract of open land survived south
of Mill Hill Broadway in 1935. (fn. 5) A council estate,
including flats, was built near Mill Hill East
station, at the foot of Bittacy Hill c. 1924. (fn. 6) A scheme
by Mill Hill Homesteads Ltd. to build on Devonshire farm, south of the station, was approved in
1928, (fn. 7) although the farm was not sold until 1933. (fn. 8)
An estate centred on Lullington Garth on the
Finchley border was built c. 1932. (fn. 9) On the southern
slopes of the Mill Hill ridge Engel Park, Bittacy
Rise, and the avenues around Pursley Road were
not completed until immediately before and after
the Second World War; Dole Street farm survived
until 1937, when the farm-house was replaced by a
council estate. (fn. 10)
Hendon changed little in appearance between
1945 and 1970. The extreme north, from Mill Hill
and Highwood Hill to the boundary, became part
of the Green Belt. Elsewhere development was
largely concerned with replacing older houses and
making use of their grounds; new buildings of note
included multi-storey flats east of Brent Street and
a block of private flats, designed by Owen Luder,
which had been built next to Hendon Hall by 1966. (fn. 11)
There were sharp contrasts in 1970: between the
open north and the shopping centres around the
stations or the factories along Edgware Road, and
between the expensive dwellings on the Mill Hill
ridge or at Hampstead Garden Suburb and the
avenues of semi-detached houses which covered most
of the parish.
The population rose steadily from 4,544 in 1861
to 22,450 in 1901 and, more steeply, to 38,806 in
1911. Between 1921 and 1931 numbers nearly
doubled, from 56,013 to 110,331. The rate slowed
down to 40.2 per cent between 1931 and 1951, after
which the population fell slightly to 151,843 by
1961. Mill Hill retained its low density in 1961,
when there were 9 persons to the acre in Mill Hill
ward, 26 in Childs Hill, and 34 in Burnt Oak. (fn. 12)