Mill Hill
Mill Hill is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is situated around northwest of Charing Cross, close to the Hertfordshire border. It was in the historic county of Middlesex until 1965, when it became part of Greater London. Its population was 18,451 in 2011.
It consists of the original Mill Hill Village; the later-developed Mill Hill Broadway ; and Mill Hill East, alongside large swathes of countryside. A further area at the western edge of the suburb, The Hale, is on the borders of Mill Hill and Edgware, and is partly in each.
History
The area's name was first recorded as Myllehill in 1547 and appears to mean "hill with a windmill". However, the workings of the original Mill are in the building adjacent to The Mill Field.Mill Hill Village is the oldest known inhabited part of the district, a ribbon development along a medieval route called 'The Ridgeway'. It is thought that the name 'Mill Hill' may be derived from a mill on The Ridgeway, built on an area of open ground known as The Mill Field. The village is bounded on the north and the south by Green Belt land, and its High Street, at 100 yards, is the shortest in London.
The area's proximity to the city made it popular as a country retreat from the 17th century onwards, and large houses and quaint cottages survive. William Wilberforce and Sir Stamford Raffles both briefly resided here, the former being the patron of Mill Hill's first church, Saint Paul's. As late as 1960, five shops existed in the Village, Hawes Brothers and Vincett's ) but although the buildings survive, they have all since been converted into private houses, as the retail focus in the area shifted to Mill Hill Broadway.
Military
at Mill Hill East was home to the Middlesex Regiment between 1905 and 1966. The 1941 reopening of the railway station, under wartime conditions, was to allow easy access to the barracks.Situated along Partingdale Lane is Seafield House. Now converted into a private home, it was originally designed and operated as a secret nuclear bunker to house and protect the 'London North Group' emergency regional government between about 1951 and 1985.
Governance
Mill Hill was part of the ancient civil parish of Hendon within the historic county boundaries of Middlesex. Mill Hill as part of Municipal Borough of Hendon was merged into the London Borough of Barnet in Greater London in 1965. The Mill Hill ward is one of 21 electoral wards in the borough. This ward has 3 out of the 63 seats on the Barnet Council.Mill Hill was in the parliamentary constituency of Hendon which was created in 1918. This lasted until 1945 when the constituency was split in two, Mill Hill in Hendon North. In 1997, the Hendon constituency was recreated. From then, until he lost his seat to the Conservative candidate, Matthew Offord, at the 2010 general election, Hendon was represented in the House of Commons by Andrew Dismore of the Labour Party.
Geography
Mill Hill's postal address is London NW7.Mill Hill Village
The village is a ribbon development along The Ridgeway. It has green belt in either side."Partingdale" and "Burtonhole" form a valley north of The Ridgeway. North is Folly Farm and Folly Brook, a tributary of the Dollis Brook, running west to east. Between The Ridgeway and Folly Brook are Burtonhole Farm, a garden centre called Finchley Nurseries, and several sports grounds.
The National Institute for Medical Research, a landmark building, was demolished in 2018 and the site is being developed for new houses and apartments. On 1 April 2015, the NIMR became part of the new Francis Crick Institute and ceased to exist as a separate MRC institute. The site was fully vacated and closed for redevelopment in 2017.
Arrandene Open Space and Featherstone Hill is a large open space which is bordered by Wise Lane, Wills Grove, Milespit Hill and The Ridgeway. While there are many open spaces in the area, Arrandene is unique because of its many open fields, meadows and woodland. The open fields were originally hay meadows which provided feed for the horses pulling carriages north to Barnet and beyond.
On Milespit Hill is the non-denominational Mill Hill Cemetery, formerly known as "Paddington New Cemetery". The 1960s pop singer Billy Fury is buried there. The cemetery also has two Commonwealth War Graves Commission sections of Second World War graves. One has the graves of 53 United Kingdom personnel, and has a Cross of Sacrifice. The other has the graves of 254 Dutch personnel, 212 of whom were merchant navy. Many were originally buried elsewhere in the UK, but were reburied here as a Dutch "Field of Honour".
Southwest of Mill Hill Village is a small suburb called "Poets' Corner", and to the north an old estate, now a nature reserve, Moat Mount Open Space.
Mill Hill Broadway
The modern-day centre of Mill Hill is at Mill Hill Broadway, previously known as Lawrence Street. This is a suburban district which developed from the 1890s onwards, and especially in the early part of the 20th century, after the arrival of the Midland Railway station in 1868. The Broadway itself is now an important local retail area with numerous shops and cafes and transport links.Mill Hill East
Parts of the east side of Mill Hill have been redeveloped, with the former gas works replaced by a Waitrose supermarket and housing developments. The small local retail area at Mill Hill East is at "Kelly's Corner" east of the station. South of Mill Hill East are Copthall and Holders Hill.The United Kingdom / Carl Zeiss / Bausch & Lomb Optical Works was established at the top of Bittacy Hill in 1912 and demolished about 1990, to be replaced by a large building owned by the Jehovah's Witnesses, to complement their nearby Watchtower House built on the site of the former Bittacy House.
Neighbouring areas
Demography
Mill Hill electoral ward of Barnet has a population of 18,451 as of the 2011 UK Census. The census also showed that ethnically, 64% of the population is White. The largest minorities were the 7% identifying themselves as Indian, 6% as Other Asian, and 6% as Black African. On religion, 39% identified as Christian, 19% Jewish, 14% no religion, 12% Muslim, 5% Hindu, 2% other religion and 8% religion not stated. The most spoken foreign language was Persian. The majority of the 6,875 households are tenure owned. The vast majority of the properties are in the "whole house or bungalow" category, of which most are semi-detached. 4.1% of economically active people were unemployed. The median age was 35.Transport
Tube and rail
Stations in the area are:- Mill Hill East
The branch was opened in 1867 as part of the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway, which also built Dollis Brook Viaduct east of the station. It used to continue west to Edgware and east to the Great Northern main line at Finsbury Park station, following the present Northern line route as far as Highgate.
In 1935, as part of the London Transport New Works Programme, plans were announced to modernise and electrify the railway and transfer it to the London Underground. Work was started, and steam passenger services between Edgware and Finchley Central were withdrawn in September 1939 to facilitate it. However, the Second World War soon caused the project to be cut short. The Finchley Central – Mill Hill East section had wartime priority and was completed in 1941,
but the plans to complete the modernisation and restart passenger services to Edgware were never resumed and were abandoned in 1950.
Steam freight trains continued to run between Finchley and Edgware until 1964; the track beyond Mill Hill East was lifted the following year. Although partly built over, including by the M1 motorway, most of the old track bed has become a footpath, and decaying 1930s concrete infrastructure, never used, can still be seen.
Buses
London Buses routes serving Mill Hill are 113, 114, 186, 221, 240, 251, 292, 302, 303, 305, 382, 605, 614, 628, 644, 688 and N113.Road
The A1 and A41 converge as they enter Mill Hill at Fiveways Corner, this section is known as the Watford Way. The dual carriageway passes through Mill Hill, and the routes diverge at Apex Corner. The M1 motorway was built through the western part of Mill Hill in 1967. There is a disused southbound exit slip road which passes under the Watford Way and which covers part of the old railway between Mill Hill East and Edgware Town.Development
Mill Hill East has been designated by the Mayor of London in his London Plan as a 'proposed area of intensification', in and around the Inglis Barracks site. As a result, Barnet Council designated the 'Mill Hill East Area Action Plan' and carried out public consultation events. An at-times noisy 'examination in public', to test the 'soundness' of the council's submitted AAP proposals, was held in October 2008, conducted by the Planning Inspectorate, and the subsequent report broadly agreed with the council's plans.Representations were made to the Planning Inspectorate to reopen the railway line from Mill Hill East station to the west.
A small victory for local protesters was that the report reaffirmed that a local closed road, Sanders Lane, would not be reopened for traffic, if only because the road was outside the AAP boundary and would need separate consideration. The inspector stated in his report of December 2008:
The amended AAP was formally adopted by the council on 27 January 2009.
Education
Primary schools
- Courtland, a mixed community school
- Deansbrook Infant, mixed community school
- Deansbrook Junior, mixed community school
- Dollis Primary School and nursery, for 2-11 year olds
- Fairway, a mixed community school
- Grimsdell, an independent co-educational pre-preparatory school run by Mill Hill School Foundation
- Mathilda Marks Kennedy, a mixed Jewish voluntary aided school
- St. Martin's, an independent co-educational preparatory school
- St. Paul's CE a mixed, voluntary aided school
- St. Vincent's Catholic Primary School
- Etz Chaim Primary School, Free school
- Millbrook Park Primary School
- The Annuciation Catholic Infant and Junior School, mixed community Catholic school