Burnt Oak Broadway lies along the route of the pre-Roman part of Watling Street, which crossed the Thames around Lambeth and by Roman times ran on to St Albans.
Such long distance roads did not necessarily generate settlements except where there was some local reason for growth such as a market. This was not the case at Burnt Oak.
Little development was attracted to the area until the twentieth century. The Hyde, to the south of Watling Estate, was recorded in 1281
and for about 600 years appears to have been the only settlement along the Edgware Road between Cricklewood and Edgware.
In 1868, the Great Northern Railway opened a line from Finsbury Park to Edgware but this attracted almost no suburban development in the Burnt Oak area. In 1884, there were a handful of roads crossing the area, particularly around Goldbeaters Farm in the north-eastern corner of the area. Orange Hill Road and Deansbrook Road are shown on the 1890s Ordinance Survey map.
Watling Estate itself did not exist before the 1920s. The land was purely agricultural, with a handful of privately owned farms, the largest of which was Goldbeaters Farm, a few scattered Edwardian villas, fields, hedgerows and trees. It was not until the Northern Line reached the area in 1924 that significant development really started.
