Childs Hill, London, NW2

(Today, the apostrophe in the name is optional.) In the 18th century, Childs Hill was a centre for brick and tile making, supplying material for building Hampstead. The Castle Inn dates from this period: the first record of it is in 1751. With an altitude over 259 feet above sea level (at the Castle Public House), Childs Hill is visible from afar, and from 1789 to 1847 was the site of an optical t

elegraph station. In 1808 this became one of a line of telegraph stations stretching from the Admiralty to Great Yarmouth, erected as part of Britain's national defences. Only the name, Telegraph Hill, remains; it has been covered with housing (this part of Childs Hill is now inside the boundary of the London Borough of Camden). Following an Act of Parliament in 1826, Finchley Road was constructed; it was completed by 1829. There was a tollgate at the Castle Public House. The road is now the main thoroughfare through Childs Hill. In the early 1850s a Colonel Evans built houses on a site called The Mead, where the Morris brick works had been. The road was later called Granville Road - which it still is today. By the 1870s a number of laundries were operating in Childs Hill. The very last laundry site in the area, the Initial Laundry in Granville Road, closed in 2006.