Place Name
Named after the area that has been associated with a manor house near woodland since the 13thCentury. The district was recorded as Wodehalle in 1271, although the manor which consisted of a grange and 312 acres to the north of Pinner has been around since 1236. By 1349 it was being spelt as Wodhall. In the 16thCentury the manor and its manorial rights were sold to Edmund Phillips and George and Rowland Pitt, although the farmland was sold separately to a William Pennifather, Sheriff of London and lord of Northolt manor. In 1637, seven years after the purchase, Pennifeather sold the property to William Wilkinson where it passed down the family line to Henry Neville. It was sold again eventually ending up with the Drummond family and by 1864 was owned by Arthur William Tooke, owner of Pinner Hill, who had the first of three towers built as part of his refurbishment of his estates. Woodhall Towers was to the east of what is now Woodhall Drive, known locally as Tooke’s Folly, it was an “ornate, almost grotesque, structure of multicoloured brick with Gothic features derived from French or German models”. It was knocked down in 1965. Although the land was sold for modern housing, the farm-house, built in the early 19thCentury on the site of the original 16thCentury building and containing a Tudor fireplace, still stood to the west of Woodhall Drive in 1968.
