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Place Name
- Laid out over a former footpath. Hadley, which comes from two Old English words hæth and lēah meaning the clearing where heather grows, was first recorded in 1248 as Hadlegh when the manor was granted to the Benedictine monks of Walden Abbey, in Essex. By 1349 it was Hadele and Hadley Monachorum in 1485 and later becoming Monken Hadley in 1489, and even Munkyn Hadley in 1553. Although Hadley Wood came much later, towards the end of the 19thCentury, when residential developed followed the opening of the station, in 1884, serving the Great Northern Railway.
