Parson Street (Hendon NW4)

The Abbot of Westminster, lord of the manor of Hendon until the Reformation, built a house called Hendon Place from around 1285.

Hendon Place was rebuilt in the Elizabethan period, and again around 1760. There is story that Elizabeth I planted a cedar tree in the grounds of the house when Sir John Fortescue lived there.

From 1828 Charles Abbot, Lord Tenterden, occupied the house, which later took the name Tenterden Hall. The house was Hendon Proprietary School in the first part of the 20th century. Trevor Huddleston, the anti-apartheid campaigner, was at school there in the early 1920s. The house was demolished in 1938.

The oldest remaining building in this part of Hendon is Hendon Hall (now a hotel). It was built around 1756 and it was believed that the famous actor David Garrick lived here when he was briefly Lord of the Manor (1765-79).

This is now thought unlikely however, as Hendon Hall was never the manor of Hendon. 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 and is now in America, but two other large ceiling paintings are still in the house. In 1966 the England football team stayed at the hotel during the World Cup.

In the late 19th century a Tenterden Grove and Waverly Grove were laid out and several more large houses were built. St Swithans was for many years a convent and training house of the Sisters of Nazareth. It is now a Jewish School.  Where the Quadrant is today was Cook's Corner.

The Hendon Odeon opened at the Quadrant in 1939 and survived until 1979.