Another in the occasional series on “Far-Flung Lost London” …

Northwood was first recorded in 1435 as Northwode, in allusion to a wood to the north of Ruislip.   At this time it was a small hamlet on the north side of the road from Pinner to Rickmansworth.  Note, though, that there was evidently  at least some settlement in the area  in the earlier part of the Medieval period, though, there being a record of a manorial grange here, owned by the monks of Ruislip Priory,  in  1248.   Only ten houses were recorded  in a land survey undertaken in the post-Medieval period, in 1565, alongside several farms.  Northwood remained essentially  rural and agricultural for much  of its later history, only becoming suburban after the arrival of the railway in the late nineteenth century.  Historically part of the county of Middlesex, it was incorporated into the  London Borough of Hillingdon in the local government reorganisation of 1965.

“The Grange”, on the site of the manorial grange, dates in part to the fifteenth century.

“The Cottage”, on Jacketts Lane, dates in part to the sixteenth century, as, incidentally,  do Gatehill Farm, Greenhill Farm  and Youngwood Farm.