Matheson's Estate Agent
Barnet Council and the Greater London Authority have identified the Cricklewood, Brent Cross and West Hendon area as a major opportunity for regeneration in the borough over the next fifteen years.
Area Description: It is here that the M1 comes to a mighty halt, paralleled by the ancient A5 and running into the buffers at Staples Corner on the A406, known to all as the North Circular. But these are big times for NW2, for the dereliction of old industry is making way for Cricklewood Redevelopment Ltd, a truly titanic regeneration of some 54 hectares.
The A5 began life as Watling Street, a viciously straight Roman road which ran from Dover in Kent to Wroxeter in Shropshire. Between the world wars, Hendon Way (A41) and the North Circular (A406) gouged their way through this region and in 1971 the M1 started beginning, or ending, at Staples Corner.
The hamlets of Cricklewood, Dollis Hill and Oxgate were quite prepared to see the world pass by until that perennial harbinger of house building, the railways, came to these parts in 1868. With the addition of sidings and goods yards by a second railway company in 1884, NW2 received its initiation into the world of industrial labour.
Housing: The easternmost tip of NW2 is called Child's Hill, a six-hit from Hampstead Heath and host to the in-demand Hocroft estate. 5 bed brick semis rub shoulders with a few architect-designed Seventies homes and pre-war redbrick flats. Hendon Way is lined with the predictable semis, while the older Finchley Road (A598) boasts more of a line in terraced cottages. There are also ex-Barnet council properties in these parts.
As we shift west from here, we come to Cricklewood central, the eastern heart of the postcode. Around the train station the pattern emerges of Victorian railway cottages blending with the semis dragged along in Hendon Way's wake.
Welcome to Dollis Hill, the western heart of NW2. It is more uniform than Cricklewood, with more complete houses, more terraces and more semis. This is indeed a hill, with views right over the capital to the North Downs on a smog-free day, and although the arrival of the Jubilee Line in 1979 did wonders for its desirability, a reputation as a first-time buyers' hunting ground still remains
Facilities & Transports: The southern quarter of NW2 belongs to Willesden Green and Brondesbury, and is more locally known as the Mapesbury Estate. Trapped in a triangle formed by Walm Lane-Chichele Road/Willesden Lane/Cricklewood Broadway-Shoot Up Hill and called by many the "West Hampstead overspill", there are many sizeable 4/5 bed Victorian properties.
This is a great area to get in and out of - if you have a car. As stated, it might not be the best place to park, but its roads to the outside world are second to none. The Jubilee Line runs through the southern edge of NW2, Brondesbury station is on the North London Line and Cricklewood station is now part of the Thameslink between Brighton and Luton. Culture is better represented here than many might think, with Dollis Hill home to the Stables Art Gallery and Grange Museum.
Dollis Hill House, in Gladstone Park, once home to Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen, was ravaged by fire in 1995 and is being painstakingly rebuilt as a cafe, conference centre and an arts and education block.
