Mill Hill

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Coordinates: 51°37′N 0°14′W / 51.62°N 0.23°W / 51.62; -0.23

Mill Hill
A sign marking Mill Hill Village
Mill Hill  Mill Hill shown within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ225925
- Charing Cross	9 mi (14.5 km)  SES
London borough	Barnet
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	NW7
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
EU Parliament	London
UK Parliament	Hendon
London Assembly	Barnet and Camden
List of places: UK • England • London

Mill Hill is a place in the London Borough of Barnet It is a suburb situated 9 miles (14.3 km) north west of Charing Cross. Prior to 1965 Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex. Mill Hill consists of several distinct parts: the old original centre based around Mill Hill Village; the later-developed but now main hub of the area at Mill Hill Broadway, and the area around Mill Hill East. 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 self-evidently means "hill with a windmill".^[1] 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 (now a park) known as the Mill Field. The village is bounded on the north and the south by Green Belt land, and its High Street, at 100m, 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 (MP, and abolitionist of the slave trade) and Sir Stamford Raffles (founder of colonial Singapore) both briefly resided here, the former being the patron of Mill Hill’s first church, Saint Paul’s.

Geography

Mill Hill's postal address is London NW7, which covers a large geographical area — in fact it is the largest of all the London numbered postal districts.

Mill Hill Village

St Paul's church, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill

There are several large institutions, including:

• Mill Hill School
• The Missionary Institute (which was present on the Ridgeway until 2007)
• Holcombe House (part of the Institute)
• The National Institute for Medical Research
• the motherhouse of the British Province of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul
• until 2007, Saint Joseph’s College, a large seminary.

There is a non-denominational Mill Hill Cemetery, formerly known as the "Paddington District Cemetery". The 1960s pop singer Billy Fury is buried there, and there are also some Dutch war graves. To the southwest is a small suburban district called "Poets' Corner", and to the north an old estate, now a recreation ground, called "Moat Mount" (once the home of Irwin Cox). Further north, on the Green Belt between The Ridgeway and Totteridge Common, is one of the last remaining farms in the Greater London area, Burtonhole Farm.

"Partingdale" and "Burtonhole" form a distinct valley north of The Ridgeway. North is Folly Brook, a tributary of the River Brent, running west to east, and the boundary of the London suburbs of Totteridge and Mill Hill with Hertfordshire and Middlesex. Along Partingdale Lane is Seafield House, now a private home, but originally a nuclear bunker to protect the 'London North Group' emergency regional government between c1951 and c1958. To the west are Burton Hole Farm, the last proper farm in Mill Hill, specializing in blond continental, a garden centre called Finchley Nurseries, and several sports grounds. Between Partingdale and Burtonhole there is a large electrical station, built in 1961. The station is served by very high voltage cables underground along Totteridge Valley. The proposed above-ground pylons and cables were rejected after a high-profile residents' campaign.

"Arrandene" 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.

Mill Hill Broadway towards Mill Hill Circus

Mill Hill Broadway

The modern-day centre of Mill Hill is at Mill Hill Broadway. This is a suburban district that 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. There is a railway station, Mill Hill Broadway, on the Thameslink First Capital Connect line, together with a bus station served by six bus routes.

The area was also served by another smaller station, Mill Hill (The Hale), opened by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway in 1867, but passenger services ended in 1939, and freight traffic in 1964. University College London has an Observatory on the A41 Watford Way, south east of The Broadway. The M1 Motorway was built through this part of Mill Hill in 1967.

Mill Hill East

Bittacy Hill looking towards Holders Hill Circus

Parts of the eastern side of Mill Hill has recently undergone redevelopment, with the old gas works replaced by a Waitrose supermarket and housing developments. The small local retail area at Mill Hill East is at “Kelly’s Corner” (officially Holders Hill Circus) east of the station. To the south of Mill Hill East are Copthall and Holders Hill.

There is a London Underground Mill Hill East tube station. This was opened in 1867 by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway, which also built the attractive Dollis Brook Viaduct to the east of the station. In 1935, plans were announced to modernise the railway, as part of the London Transport New Works Programme. Work was started, only to be cut short by World War II. All steam passenger services ended in September 1939, but the electrification of the line from Finchley Central tube station to Mill Hill East was completed, and that section reopened, as part of the Northern line, in 1941.

After the war, plans to complete the modernisation and restart passenger services between Mill Hill East and Edgware were abandoned in 1950. Steam freight trains continued to run between Finchley and Edgware until 1964, and 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.

Inglis Barracks at Mill Hill East is a large area of military land, that has been progressively sold, as military needs have changed. The 1941 reopening of the railway station, under war-time conditions, was to allow easy access to the barracks, which was the home of the Middlesex Regiment between 1905 and 1962. The army postal depot remained for many years after that date, before moving to Northolt. In 1988, a 23-year-old soldier Michael Robbins was killed and nine others were injured by an IRA bomb blast.

The United Kingdom / Carl Zeiss / Bausch & Lomb Optical Works was established at Mill Hill East in 1912 and demolished in about 1987. The Jehovah's Witnesses have had a centre since 1958, and they redeveloped the optical works to become the International Bible Students' Association in 1988.

Neighbouring areas

	Edgware	Totteridge	Whetstone
	Burnt Oak		North Finchley
		Mill Hill
	Colindale	Hendon	Church End Finchley

Transport

1930 OS map, showing Mill Hill to the east and in the centre, and Edgware to the west. The east-west railway line to the west of Mill Hill East station, on the right, was completely closed in 1964, and some sections of the track bed have since been built on. Inglis Barracks is at the top-right.

There are two stations:

• Mill Hill Broadway station is situated off The Broadway. (It is the top red circle, in the middle above.) The station is operated by First Capital Connect, located on the Midland Main Line as part of the Thameslink service. There are regular trains to St. Albans and Luton Airport to the north, and West Hampstead (8 minutes) and St. Pancras International (17 minutes) to the south, with most services running through central London and serving Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars, and beyond. It is in Travelcard Zone 4. It is also served by bus routes 114, 221, 240, 251, 302 and 303. Bus routes 113 and 186 are nearby along the A1/A41, and reaching Oxford Circus and Brent Cross respectively. The station platforms are being lengthened from eight to twelve carriages, to cope with longer Thameslink Programme trains.

• Mill Hill East station, situated off Bittacy Hill, is on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line, and is the only station of the branch line from Finchley Central station. (It is the right-hand red circle above.) The normal off-peak service is four trains an hour to and from Finchley Central, but through trains are provided during peak hours, and when the line is disrupted by engineering works. Bus routes 221, 240 and 382 serve the station.

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' (AAP) and carried out public consultation events. An at-times noisy 'examination in public',^[2] 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.^[3]

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 (this had already conceded by the council) and would need separate consideration. However, speakers at the enquiry drew attention to the 'co-incidence' that a collector road proposed in the AAP^[4] happened to meet the main road (Brittacy Hill) exactly opposite the short section of Sanders Lane still open to traffic. They suggested to the inspector that it was no co-incidence at all, but the matter was left unresolved. The inspector stated in his report of December 2008:^[5]

The amended AAP was formally adopted by the Council on 27 January 2009.^[6]

Education

Infant and Junior Schools

• Belmont, the preparatory school within the Mill Hill School Foundation^[7]
• Courtland, a mixed community school^[8]
• Deansbrook Infant, mixed community school^[8]
• Deansbrook Junior, mixed community school^[8]
• Dollis Infant, a mixed community school^[8]
• Dollis Junior, a mixed foundation school^[8]
• Fairway, a mixed community school^[8]
• Grimsdell, an independent co-educational pre-preparatory school run by Mill Hill School Foundation^[9]
• Mathilda Marks Kennedy, a mixed Jewish voluntary aided school^[8]
• St. Martin's, an independent co-educational preparatory school^[10]
• St Paul's CE a mixed, voluntary aided school^[8]

Secondary Schools

• Copthall, a community girls school^[11]
• Mill Hill County High, a mixed foundation school^[11]
• Mill Hill, an independent boarding and day school^[12]
• The Mount, an independent day school for girls aged 4 to 18 years^[13]

Notable people

• Peter Collinson^[14]
• Celia Fiennes^[14]
• Sir Stamford Raffles^[14]
• William Wilberforce^[14]
• John Wilkes^[14]

References

External links

• Mill Hill Preservation Society

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