At the core of Flitcroft was 28 acres of land left by Rachel Farby in 1626 to a certain William Clark. In 1756, it was bought by an agent for the architect Henry Flitcroft (or Fleetcroft).

Flitcroft farmhouse lay just north of West End Green but the estate was effectively managed by Flitcroft from his house at Frognal Grove, Hampstead.

By 1866, the estate has passed to Mary Ann Porter. The 20 acres north of Fortune Green was sold to the parish for a cemetery in 1874.

The rest of the estate was given over to the builders in the 1880s. Although the name Parsifal Road was approved in 1883, no houses went up there until the 1890s but Hackney or New College, a brick building with majolica dressings designed by W. P. Manning, was built at the eastern end in 1887.

The National Standard Land Mortgage and Investment Co. constructed Ingham and Burrard roads between Fortune Green Road and Finchley Road in 1885 and 64 small terraced houses were constructed there between 1886 and 1892 by Rathbone, Gray, Pulling, Brown, and other builders, while much of the frontage on Fortune Green Road and Finchley Road was covered with houses and shops.

A Congregational church was built at the junction of Burrard Road and Finchley Roads in 1894. Between 1890 and 1897, about 13 larger detached or semi-detached houses were built in Parsifal Road.

A land company was probably also involved in building lower middle-class terraces on the rest of the Flitcroft estate south of the cemetery and west of Fortune Green, where fear of the cemetery outweighed the advantage of adjacent open space.

W. H. Suttle, of Agamemnon Road, was the main builder of 155 houses in Agamemnon, Ajax, Ulysses, and Achilles Roads between 1886 and 1896.