Stepney had tidal mills along the Thames by 1086 and in the Middle Ages it provided a land market for Londoners and courtiers. The growth of all the hamlets is traced to c.1700, besides economic development to c.1550 and their local government, religious life, and charities. Bethnal Green, in the north-west, a parish from 1743 and metropolitan borough from 1900, is described to the present day.

The volume is the second to cover parts of Middlesex which lay from 1889 until 1965 within the administrative county of London, and contains histories of the parishes of Hampstead and Paddington. Before their inclusion in Greater London the parishes embraced the metropolitan borough of Hampstead and most of that of Paddington, with a total population of over 200,000. Queen's Park, built in a detached part of Chelsea parish, is included in the account of Paddington. Hampstead rose northward from Chalk Farm to the heath and Finchley and, less steeply, north-eastward from Kilburn High Road....

Vol. 2 has title: The Victoria history of the county of Middlesex; v. have title: A history of Middlesex.

Vol. 2 has title: The Victoria history of the county of Middlesex; v. have title: A history of Middlesex.

The volume relates the history of Ossul-stone hundred and of the parishes of Friern Barnet, Finchley, and Hornsey, which form the outer part of the hundred's Finsbury division. The article on Hornsey covers Highgate village, including the half which lay within the county of London from 1889 until 1965, and a peninsular part of the parish, south-east of Seven Sisters Road, transferred to London in 1899. Before their inclusion in Greater London in 1965, Friern Barnet was an urban district, with 29,000 inhabitants, and Finchley and Hornsey were municipal boroughs, with populations of 69,000 and...