HENDON

HENDON, a parish and suburban village in the hundred of Gore, county Middlesex, 3 miles N.W. of Hampstead, and 8 N.W. of St. Paul's. It is situated on Watling Street, near the river Brent, over which a new bridge has been erected, and contains the hamlets of Golder's Green, Brent Street, Page Street, Highwood, and the village of Mill Hill.

It is mentioned in Domesday Book as Handone, and at that time belonged to Westminster Abbey. It was subsequently given to the Herberts, from whom it passed to the Nicolls, Garricks, &c. The union poorhouse is situated at Red Hill. The union comprises 8 parishes The parish is chiefly agricultural, and the village irregularly built. On Highwood Hill is the mansion where Lord William Russell resided previously to his arrest, and near it is a mineral spring impregnated with cathartic salt. Hendon Place, the seat of Lord Tenterden, was a banqueting house belonging to Queen Elizabeth, built on the site of the abbots of Westminster's palace, where Cardinal Wolsey rested on his way to York. At Mill Hill, in this parish, is the Protestant Dissenters' grammar school, founded in 1807 at an expense of £25,000. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of London, value £1,280. In addition to the parish church there are two district churches, viz: St. Paul's, at Mill Hill, and All Saints, at Child's Hill, the livings of both which are perpetual curacies* The parish church is dedicated to St. Mary, and has a square embattled tower. The interior of the church contains a very antique font and a finely-sculptured altar-piece, also monuments of Bishop Fowler, Rawlinsons, Whichcotes of Brent, Colmores, Herberts, Ayloffe, the antiquary, and Longmore, a man 7½ feet in height; also a brass of J. Downer, bearing date 1510. The district church of All Saints, at Child's Hill, was erected in 1856, and that of St. Paul's, at Mill Hill, at the commencement of this century by the late William Wilberforce, Esq. There is a Congregational church, and places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans. There are 10 endowed almshouses, and 40 children provided with clothing. National schools for both sexes were erected at Church End in 1858. At a place called The Hyde, in this parish, a gold coin of one of the Cæsars was found.

[Description(s) from "The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland" (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]
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