Folly Brook - Mill Hill


Tributary to the Folly Brook

A tributary to Folly Brook flows north-eastwards
The Burnt Oak Brook rises in this area and flows south westwards

Post to the north Holcombe Hill
Post to the east Mill Hill
Post to the west Mill Hill

Byron Road
In 1878 the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society divided the land into roads, named after famous poets

Daws Lane
Mill Hill Park. This was fields of Daws Farm which was bought by Hendon Council in 1923 and opened as a park. It has many facilities and stretches south and west
80 civil defence building from 1939. It is said it was intended to be used as a cleansing centre for gas attacks during World War Two. Later used as a drill hall for the Sea Cadets and later as a local history centre. Now to be a Jewish Free School

Hammers Lane
This was once called Ratcliffe Lane after The Ratcliffe family who lived here in the 17th
Marshall Estate built for Marshall and Snelgrove on the Marshall family’s Goldbeater’s Estate land.  There is an institute, cafĂ©, shop and club house. Now managed by the Retail Trust, a charity that looks after people working in retail, plus those retired from it. The original cottages have plaques with the names of a big London shop.  Garden.
Marshall House. Building now used as offices designed by architect George Hornblower in 1897. This is in brick with terra cotta and a wooden cupola carried on eight columns. The door is flanked with granite tablets saying”THIS CENTRAL BLOCK OF THE HOMES FOR PENSIONERS OF THE LINEN & WOOLLEN DRAPERS INSTITUTION and its erection in memory of James Marshall. To the side original living accommodation. Behind are smoking and reading rooms of 1901.  On the first floor is a hall with open timber roof and a bust of George Marshall and dramatic stained glass. This was the communal area of the cottage homes built by the Linen and Woollen Drapers' Institution, a friendly society of 1832 on the east side of the road
Chalet estate for the Linen and Woollen Drapers Institution on the west side of the road, Built 1927
Bedford House. Five blocks and a nursing home for elderly residents. Also part of the Linen and Woollen Drapers Institution. This has now been sold off and is now posh flats
Cottages 18th weather boarded - Hilltop Cottage, Linden Cottage, Vincett Cottage in the centre which was butchers shop from 1801 with a weatherboard shop extension, Norah Cottage and Ridge Cottage, in brick. This area was once called Bunn’s Bushes home in the 17th of the Ratcliffe family. There was a wheelwright here 1713- 1900
Three Hammers Pub. Is known to date from at least 1751 but the weather boarded building was replaced in the mid 1920s. The pub had connections with Holbrook Jackson who wrote Anatomy of Bibliomania
Goodwyn School. Private school.
Murray House. House once called Sunnyside, set at right angles to the road. It has a plaque to Sir James Murray who lived here 1870-1885. He was the Founder Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and a master at Mill Hill School.
West Grove and West Grove Cottage. 19th villa altered in 1937.  The original house was built in 1786 for clergyman William Trinder.

High Street
Blenheim Steps. House from the 18th in brick once called Blenheim House in 1925 it became part of Mill Hill School, divided and a side entrance installed. The ground floor became a tuck shop with bow windows added in the 1920s. in 1971 it was sold and is now housing.
Telephone Box. K6

Milespit Hill
Nicoll Almshouse.. In 1696 Thomas Nicholl of Hendon erected a single-storeyed brick alms-house here for six paupers – hence the inscription on a plaque - "These six Almes Houses were erected in ye year of our Lord 1696 at the sole charge of Thomas Nicoll of this Parish Gent’. However he did not endow the premises and the parish had to do any repairs. In 1892 the executors of Eliza Holm provided a pension and an endowment and thus these buildings date from 1896. It consists of eight single storey cottages in brick.
1 - 2 The Welches. 18th cottages Built in 1700 and a smithy was once part of the downhill building..
1 - 2 Hillside Cottages. 18th brick cottages with some weatherboarding
1 - 2 Parkfield Cottages. May be designed by T.E. Colcutt. 19th brick cottages with some timberwork
The Mount School.  This is now a school. Designed by T. E. Collcutt in 1875 in brick with tall chimneys. In 1754 this was the site of Milespit Farm.
Angel Cottages. Built in 1964 by Richard Seifert and Partners

Mill Hill
Mill Hill. The name is first recorded in 1374.  It is self-explanatory - a 'hill with a windmill' from Middle English ‘mille’ and ‘hill’

Mill Hill School

Mill Hill School fronts onto The Ridgeway
Mill Hill School. It was built for the Congregational College founded in 1807 by a committee of merchants and ministers. As a 'Protestant Dissenters Grammar School' for 120 boys. It was originally in a house was called The Ridgeway and had belonged to the 18th botanist Peter Collinson. Quaker botanist who Linnaeus had visited. In 1896 the name changed to Mill Hill School.
Ridgeway House, by T.E, Collcutt built in 1905. The site of the house was recorded in 1321 and Ridgeway House in 1501. It was the home of botanist Peter Collinson but the original house was demolished in 1825.
The main building is 1825 by Sir William Tite the foundation stone, to which was laid in 1825 and the new school, the present main building, was opened in June 1826 and more land was bought in succeeding years. Mill Hill admitted girls into the sixth form in 1975 and went fully co-educational in 1997.
Big School, linked to Old School by an open passage built in 1905 by T. E. Collcutt including.  A chapel had been attached to Ridgeway House and the bricks of this were used for a chapel here which Colcutt included in his 1906 school.
Wall between Wills Grove and the school was originally the boundary wall to Ridgeway House and the site of Collinson’s Botanic Garden to which there is a plaque.
Buckland Garden. This was laid out by Woods of Taplow and was built in 1949 as a memorial to Richard Buckland, a former pupil and Governor.
Winterstoke Library. Built in 1907 by Collcutt with an octagonal clock tower with a timber-framed clock house. This is named for Mr W H Wills, of the tobacco firm W. D. & H.O. Wills, who became the first Baron Winterstoke
Murray Scriptorium. This is where in 1870 James Murray, a teacher at the school, left three tons of paper slips to prepare the Oxford English Dictionary. Originally a corrugated iron building it was dismantled and moved here. That building burned down in 1902 and a new Scriptorium was erected in 1903.
Chapel for Mill Hill School built 1898 by Basil Champneys in brick. Inside stained glass might be by Powell of Whitefriars.
The Mcclure Music School beyond, by Martin S. Briggs. McClure was one of the headmasters
Patrick Troughton Theatre. Troughton was an actor and an ex-Dr.Who
The Science School. Built in 1924 by Stanley Hamp. It has three plaques of special note. One records the opening of the building in 1924 by Edward Prince of Wales. The second is to former pupil, Sir Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for his part in the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. The third records the first ever two-way radio communication with New Zealand, from this building by Cecil William Goyder a pupil who became chief Marconi representative in India.
Art School, in brick,.
Sixth Form Centre, 1970-1 by Alex Gordon & Partners.
Sports Hall,  Down a slope, brick-faced of the 1980s.
Sanatorium, by T. Roger Smith, c. 1877.
Bicentennial or Favell Building, opened by the Countess of Wessex and a tree planted to commemorate this
Collinson’s garden. Collinson was a wealthy textile merchant and a friend of Carl Linnaeus and Benjamin Franklin. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1728. Thorough an American contact Collinson received boxes of seeds and cuttings, which he then distributed to the landed gentry. He had established a garden at his house in Peckham, and transferred the plants to Ridgeway House which his wife had inherited. In 1746 Collinson planted Britain's first hydrangea here and a plaque commemorates this. In 1762 his magnolia, raised from seed in 1746, flowered. People came from all over Europe to visit his gardens here. Collinson Tulip Tree at the front of the school was struck by lightning with only a 3ft stump remaining but saved by Trevor Chilton, head of biology,. There is now a trail of specimen trees planted. This includes the stump of a cedar tree said to have been by Carl Linnaeus.

Milton Road

In 1878 the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society divided the land into roads, named after famous poets

Ridgeway
Mill Hill's village street, with views northward over the Totteridge valley
The Old Mill House.  House built 1740 in brick with a ground floor shopfront. This was the Kitchner family’s post office and store 1813-1924.
Telephone Box outside the Mill House type K6. Designed 1935 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Made by various contractors.
Sheepwash pond
Belmont Children’s Farm . This has 30 sorts of animal including wallabies, snowy owls, storks, a Harris hawk, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, alpacas, pheasants, partridges and quail.
Kings Head pub. Now gone. This was a brick building which had been a pub since before 1751. In 1949 the site became part of the playing fields of Belmont school.
Post Office Cottage, 18th brick and weatherboard house
Milestone on the green. Erected 1752.
1-4 Church Cottages, 18th brick cottages with 19th trellis porches. There is also a brick and weather boarded, barn. 3 has a pathway of inkbottles which came from Mill Hill School.
Church House. 18th brick house
Church of St Paul. Built and paid for 1829-36 by William Wilberforce. A plain, cement rendered building. It was built on the site of a gravel pit donated by Sir Charles Flower and bricks were used from a kiln on William Wilberforce’s Hendon Wood Lane estate. It was designed by Samuel Hood Page as a cheap church in the Commissioners' style. Inside a window of 1809 by Charles Muss and W. H. Hodgson.
St.Paul’s Church Hall
St.Paul’s Church of England Primary School.  Built 1835 in a stucco building next to the church, on land given by Sir James Flower. At first it was a branch of St. Mary's National school but from 1849 it was independent. The school continues.
The Headmasters House. A house called The Grove used as headmaster's house of Mill Hill School. This is a white weather boarded house which is Timber-framed built round a brick chimney and perhaps 16th. It was remodelled in 1912 as a home for four schoolmasters. Originally part of the Ridgeway House Estate It is one of the oldest houses in Mill Hill. It was the home of the Haley family who built the Quaker Meeting House. In the late 17th it ewes was used as a shop and bought by the Mill Hill School in 1907
War memorial - Gate of Honour for Mill Hill School by Colcutt’s partner, Stanley Hamp. Dating from 1920 in Portland stone a classical gate placed at   the centre of the main school building. Iron gates with bronze roundels and an inscription ‘Gate of Honour’ and: PIIS PATRIAE SERVATORIBUS SERVAT IMEMORES DDD.
Rosebank and Rosebank Cottage. This is a 17th Timber-framed building with White weatherboarding which continues as a black weatherboard barn. It was used as a Quaker Meeting House, 1678 - 1719. Later used as a farm.
Lodge to the Priory by T. E. Collcutt  built in 1875, for J. Smith.
The Priory. The original building on this site was built in 1754 and belonged to Hutton Perkins. It has been called the Clock House. In 1930 it was acquiredby St Vincent’s for the older sisters of the order in need of nursing care.
Kingsland. ‘Modern’ house built 1970
The Bungalow. 1930s cottage orne.
Church – belongs to the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star. The building is the bethel of the Universal Spiritual School of Practical Christianity - a Christian group which originated in Nigeria in 1964. This was Ridgeway Wesleyan Methodist church which had begun in the late 1880s, when a temporary Wesleyan mission was opened here. In 1893 the current brick chapel was built. by Sin & Adkin of Bradford
The Mill Field. This is believed to be the site of the mill, which gave the village its name which was documented in 1321 but had disappeared by 1754.  It is now an area of nature conservation in a large open space which slopes steeply down from The Ridgeway. The lower slopes have grass and hedgerows marking the old field boundaries, scattered trees, and thistles. There is a pond from which a small stream rises and there are many wild flowers ad butterflies. The upper part of the field is managed as a park and has a football pitch. From here there are good views across west London and it is said that from here on a clear day people with telescopes can pick out Hindhead, 40 miles away.
Angel Pond. This may be the place of the original village centre, near a long gone pub called The Angel.

Shakespeare Road
In 1878 the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society divided the land into roads, named after famous poets

Tennyson Road
In 1878 the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society divided the land into roads, named after famous poets

Wills Grove
This private road largely consists of Mill Hill School boarding houses and associated buildings. Named for W H Wills, of the tobacco firm W. D. & H.O. Wills, subsequently Imperial Tobacco Company. Who donated money to the school used for land and other purchases
The Lodge. Built 1900.
Atkinson House. Named after the first Headmaster, the Reverend J Atkinson
Burton Bank House . One of the school boarding houses built in 1935, architect Stanley Hamp. Named to commemorate its original position on Burton Hole Lane
Cedars House .Named in honour of the cedars planted by Peter Collinson
Collinson House.  Boarding house built 1903 by T E Colcutt and named after the 18th botanist.
Cricket Pavilion with white weatherboarding.
Park Lodge with white weatherboarding.
McClure House.  Named after Sir John McClure, Headmaster at the turn of the 20th century
Murray House. Named in honour of teacher and originator of the Oxford English Dictionary
Priestley House. Named after Headmaster Thomas Priestley
Ridgeway House. Boarding house of 1911, architect T E Colcutt, named after the school’s original house.
School House. Named after Tite's main building
St Bees.. This was once the Headmaster’s House, built 1896, architect F Wills
Weymouth House. Named after Headmaster Dr. R Weymouth
Winterstoke House.  Pre-prep School. This was once a vicarage now with a large wing behind.  Named after tobacco merchant Wills but renamed as Grimsdell Pre-preparatory School in 1995.
School Park and playing fields.  These were purchased, mainly with assistance from Lord Winterstoke,  including Farm Field, Cricket Field and Long Field. Top Field was terraced and levelled in 1902. The Gears Field, a name first noted in 1321 was levelled in 1906.  the Park sports field was created in 1925 to the designs of E. H. White, garden architect. the Memorial Field was levelled in the late 1940s.

Winterstoke Gardens
Small development of two storey properties in the Arts and Crafts tradition.

Wise Lane
Arrandene, a house with barge boarded gables much altered in the later 19th was probably built soon after 1800
Arradene Recreation Ground,  This was a group of fields  which were Farmed for hay in the 19the and acquired by the district council in 1929. There were twelve fields affected by patchy 'digging for victory' during the Second World War. The hedges contain many trees and the fields have grasses associated with old pasture.  

Sources
Aim. Archive web site
Aldous. Village London
English Heritage web site
London Borough of Barnet web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Gardens on line web site
Middlesex Churches
Pevsner and Cherry.  London North
Retail Trust web site
Stevenson, Middlesex
The Mill Field. Wikipedia web site
Walford. Village London.

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