Hendon
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Hendon is a London suburban development situated 7 miles (11.3 km) north west of Charing Cross.
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[edit] History
Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday (1087), but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the high hill', is earlier. There is even evidence of Roman settlement discovered by the Hendon and District Archaeological Society and others; an urn burial of a child was found in nearby Sunny Gardens Road. The Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railways came in the 1860s, and the underground, at Golders Green at least, in 1907. Much of the area developed into a suburb of London and now the area is mostly town with some countryside in the Mill Hill, and Edgware area. Hendon industry was mostly centred on manufacturing, and included motor and aviation works, and developed from the 1880s. In 1931 the civil parish of Edgware was abolished and its area was added to the civil parish of Hendon.
Hendon became an urban district in 1894. In 1932 the urban district became the Municipal Borough of Hendon. The municipal borough was abolished in 1965 and the area became part of the London Borough of Barnet.
Hendon’s claim to fame is in flying and Hendon Aerodrome is now the RAF Museum. The area is closely associated with the aviator Claude Grahame-White. Another part of the Aerodrome site is the Hendon Police College, the training centre for the Metropolitan Police.
It is a former borough and ancient parish. The name means the high place or down, and Hendon's motto is Endeavour. The Burroughs is a civic centre for the London Borough of Barnet, and also the site of Middlesex University Business School.
[edit] Church End
Hendon is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. Hendon and District Archaeological Society has found a number of interesting Roman artifacts at Church End but nothing conclusive, and the Saxon settlement near to the church may not be a continuation of its Roman predecessor. The Domesday Survey mentions a priest, and a church building was documented in 1157. The oldest fabric of the present church is 13th century. The fifty-foot tower (c1450) was much restored in the 18th century when the weathercock, in the form of the "Lamb and Flag" the badge of the St John, was added. The church is, however, dedicated to St. Mary, an enigmatic feature that defies local historians to this day. It may be a sign of the (heretical) cult of Mary Magdalene said to have been promoted by the Templars and their successors. Eastern extensions carried out between 1913 – 15 to designs of architect, Temple Moore have greatly expanded the church. Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore in 1819, is buried in the church. The most important grave in the churchyard is that of Herbert Chapman the manager of Arsenal Football Club in the 1920s and 1930s. Bram Stoker, may have had St Mary's graveyard as his model for his fictional "Kingstead", the uneasy resting place of Lucy Westenra in his book Dracula. A more benign spirit, St Mary's graveyard is also the resting place of Coventry Patmore's wife Emily, the model for the poem The Angel in the House (1854), and the upon whom the Victorian model of domesticity "the Angel of the Hearth" is based.
West of the church is the Greyhound pub rebuilt in 1898. Originally called the church house it was used vestry meetings from the 16th to 1878. In 1676 the inn, by then was known as the Greyhound, burned down in a fire. In 1855 a fire brigade was established, renamed the Hendon volunteer fire brigade in 1866, and a manual fire engine was kept in a building near the church. Further west Church Farmhouse Museum, opened in 1955, is run by the London Borough of Barnet.
[edit] The Burroughs
The Burroughs was a distinct hamlet until the 1890s known from 1316 until the 19th Century as 'the burrows', doubtless referred originally to the keeping of rabbit warrens. After the UK outbreak of myxomatosis, rabbits were smoked out of the area using steam.
[edit] Parson Street and Holders Hill
The Abbot of Westminster, then Lord of the Manor had a house (c1285) known as Hendon Place. The house was rebuilt in the Elizabethan period, and again around 1760. The story that Elizabeth I planted a cedar tree in the grounds of the house, when Sir John Fortescue lived there was is an 18th century story. From 1828 it was occupied by Charles Abbott, Lord Tenterden, from whom it took its later name Tenterden Hall. The house was demolished in 1938 having been Hendon Preparatory School (now located at a house called Brenthurst close by). Trevor Huddleston the anti apartheid campaigner was at school there in the early 1920s.
During the 18th century some of immediate estate surrounding Hendon Place was auctioned off for large houses, with much of the land being used for building other mansions. Of these Hendon Hall, new in 1756, at the corner of Ashley Lane, is the last remaining, and perhaps the best known. The suggestion that David Garrick the actor lived here whilst he was briefly Lord of the Manor, (1765-79) is without foundation. A small obelisk in the hotel garden dedicated to William Shakespeare and David Garrick originally stood, until 1957, in Manor Hall Road. A ceiling painting by Tiepolo, Olympia and the Four Continents was uncovered in 1954 (now in America); but two other large ceiling paintings, are still in the house. A Mr. Somerville laid out Waverley Grove and Tenterden Grove in the 1860s and by the end of the 19th century the estate was further developed by C F Hancock and included houses. On Parson Street, St Swithans was for many years a convent and training house of the Sisters of Nazareth. It is now a Jewish School. Further north is Holders Hill House, now Hasmonean High School.
[edit] Hendon Central
Hendon War Memorial was unveiled on St George's Day, 23 April 1922, but was moved to its present location in 1962. By 1906 Sir Audley Neeld was building in the lands that had been Renters Farm, starting with a new road from Station Road to Queens Road, later called Vivian Avenue. The eventual estate used many names associated with the family: Dallas, Audley, Elliot, Graham, Rundell, Vivian, Algernon, and, of course, Neeld. Other names are associated with Neeld estates in Grittleton, including Alderton, Foscote, Sevington, and Allington. Hendon Central Station and the Watford Way were constructed in 1923. The road was supposed to cut through the Neeld Estate but a local ratepayers group in Hendon Central, backed up by Hendon Urban District Council, petitioned the County Council in January 1924 and central government, and the route was changed so that it would pass up Queen's Road (better known now as the Hendon Way).
[edit] Brent Street Area
Brent Street was a part of a route north out of London and at the Quadrant a seven-mile stone,the last piece of physical evidence for the road, is set into the wall. Much of the original small hamlet in Brent Street, which had been there since at least 1613, burned down in a fire of 1861. Brent Street had a parish pump, which was in disrepair in 1818 from the numerous travellers using the road, and a cage for criminals from 1796, which stood at the junction of Brent Street and Bell Lane (removed in 1883). By the 1850s there were at least thirteen shops in Brent Street. Congregationalists built a chapel (1855) and in a school in New Brent Street (1856), which later moved and became Bell Lane Board School (1901). Tenby House is the last of three large properties that were built between Finchley Lane and Victoria Road. The Victoria Estate was developed around Victoria and Stratford Roads in the 1870s and 1880s. The cricketer and footballer Denis Compton was brought up here and lived at 20 Alexandra Road attending Bell Lane Primary school. New Brent Street was the address of the local police office in 1855 (a later station of 1884 was demolished 2002). Christ Church was opened in October of 1881 as a chapel of ease for St Mary's, becoming a parish church in 1923.
During the twentieth century a number of small factories were to be found in the area. The largest was Tilley Lamps Ltd (1915 to 1961) employed around 300 people manufacturing pressure paraffin lamps, (rather charmingly called Aladdin lamps in the 1930s). In December 1969 planning permission was granted for the building of a new shopping district on Brent Street called Sentinel Square, at a cost of £1.5 million, and within a year the old Rose and Crown pub, the Classic Cinema, and a number of shops had been replaced with a row of modernist shops and a Tesco supermarket. The Odeon Quadrant was opened in 1939 at what had been Cook's corner in Parson Street. It was pulled down in 1979.
Salisbury Plain is a piece of wasteland in front the Load of Hay (demolished 2004) where the driven animals were penned overnight. The pub was a favourite of Peter Mandelson in his youth. There is a small collection of 18th century houses along Shirehall Lane, two with fire plaques, and a Penfold House, Brent Street, is said to have been built in 1713. Thought to have been a lodge for drovers bringing cattle up to London it was known as Albert Cottage until 1923. Near to Brent Green was Goodyers house (demolished in 1934), named after an important Hendon family. Where was goodyers house is now a Cul-de-sac, with about 10 or 11 houses called Goodyers Gardens. Number 11 was the main house when Goodyers House was still standing. Hendon Park was laid out on Step Fields, belonging to Goodyer House, and was opened as Queen's Park by in 1903. There was a particularly large propaganda rally in Hendon Park "Rout the Rumour", the first of its kind in England held in July 1940. Hendon House was home to John Norden, the renowned 16th century cartographer, but was demolished and replaced with Hendon School. Famous alumni include Peter Mandelson, Rabbi Lionel Blue, and author Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
A little further down the road is a small gothic complex called the Alma White Centre. In 1893 the Rev W H Seddon, Hon Secretary of the Church Army, purchased Fosters, in Brent Street with the intention of building "a Rescue Home (for fallen women), with a Chapel attached". The site became St Saviour's Homes, for "feeble minded" women in 1897. In 1926 it was taken over by the Pillar of Fire Society, as a bible college, school and chapel.
[edit] The Quadrant Area
Despite the name, suggesting a small town square this area is defined where Brent Street meets the road down from Hendon Library, The Burroughs. There is a small parade of shops, which has been there for many years.
[edit] Sentinel Square Area
Sentinel Square is just off of Brent street, a half undercover U shaped selection of small shops. There is a pharmacy, a stationers and a café. The area is popular with schoolchildren from both Hendon School and its rival, St. Mary's CE High School during lunchtimes and after the schools have let out.
[edit] Transport
Hendon is served by Hendon Central tube station on the Edgware Branch of the Northern Line and by Hendon railway station on the National Rail network, as well as by numerous bus routes. Hendon Aerodrome was a former airport, famous for the site of the first airmail delivery, the first parachute descent from a powered aircraft, the first night flights, and the first aerial defence of a city. It closed in 1968.
[edit] Population of Central Hendon
This includes West Hendon, Colindale, and parts of the Hyde
- 1881 5,615
- 1891 8, 255
- 1901 11,524
- 1911 17, 776
- 1921 20,246
- 1931 57,603
- 1951 69,483
- 1961 62,698
[edit] People from Hendon
- Joe Beevers - professional poker player
- Sir John Clements - actor and producer
- Denis Compton - cricketer and footballer
- Harry Demetriou - professional poker player
- Henry Hicks - Royal College of Surgeons, President of the Geological Society, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
- Michael Podro - art historian
- Oliver Postgate - animator, puppeteer and writer.
- Anthony Tang - professional chess player
- Thomas Tilling - omnibus operator was born here in 1825
- Henry Cooper - heavyweight boxer
[edit] External links
- Barnet Archives and Local Studies
- HADAS Archived Newsletters of the Hendon & District Archaeological Society
- Victoria County History Hendon Chapter for a more detailed history of Hendon
- Pictures 1700 - 1900
- Pictures 1900 - 1930
- Hendon and Finchley Times is archived from 1998 for more recent history.
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