Friday Hill, as well as being a road, is also the name of the surrounding housing estate. On older maps, the road is called Friday Hill Road.
On the crest of the hill is Friday Hill House, designed by the architect Lewis Vulliamy and built in 1839. It is a Grade II listed building. Friday Hill House served as the manor house of the Heathcote family and had attached farmland of 160 acres.
According to legend, King Charles II is said to have knighted a loin of beef (“Sir Loin”) at Friday Hill – the story is generally assumed to be apocryphal. The pub on Friday Hill, later called The Dovecote, in the past has traded as The Sirloin.
Louisa Boothby-Heathcote succeeded as Lady of the Manor in 1915. She was the last resident of the house and after the Second World War, the estate was sold to London County Council to enlarge their large housing estate, also called Friday Hill. The house became a community centre.
The London County Council built the Friday Hill Estate between 1938 and the 1950s.
The pop group Friday Hill took its name from the area, the group’s members having grown up on the estate.
