Muswell Hill, United Kingdom

In the 18th century, Muswell Hill was a scattered village consisting mainly of detached villas with large gardens. In 1787, one commentator wrote that nowhere within 100 miles (160 km) of London was there a village so pleasant or with such varied views. Little had changed by the middle of the 19th century. One of the houses of the time was The Limes, which occupied the angle of Muswell Hill Road with Colney Hatch Lane; it was a three-storeyed house, with portico and two-storeyed wing, approached by a double carriage drive through impressive gateways. The large grounds of the house extended to Tetherdown and included a lake. Opposite The Limes was Muswell Hill pond and, beyond that, the Green Man inn, which was built of stone and likely dating to at least 1552. Colney Hatch Lane itself was part of an ancient route from London to the north; it was once known as Muswell Hill Lane.

Further down the hill past the Green Man was The Elms, a squat three-storeyed house, later improved by Thomas Cubitt standing in 11 acres (4.5 ha); part of the grounds of which were laid out by Joseph Paxton. A short distance down the north side of Muswell Hill was The Grove, which was three storeys high and had nine bays, with pedimented projections at each end. It stood in 7.9 acres (3.2 ha) of grounds, which contained a 184 m (201 yd) avenue of oaks. In 1774, the house was occupied by Topham Beauclerk. The Elms was demolished in 1900 to make way for Dukes Avenue.

A little farther down the hill stood Grove Lodge, also in wooded grounds. Altogether there were eight properties in Muswell Hill worthy of note in 1817.

Parallel with Muswell Hill was a track known as St James's Lane, which ran across a triangle of wasteland. By the middle of the 19th century, houses were already dispersed along the lane at the foot of which was Lalla Rookh, a two-storeyed villa with a wide verandah. Other buildings included cottages or huts, both single and in terraces.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that Muswell Hill began to be developed more densely from a collection of country houses to the London suburb that it is today. The development was spurred by the opening in 1873 of Alexandra Palace, a large pleasure pavilion built on the most easterly of north London's gravel hills and intended as the counterpart to the Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill in south London. Alexandra Palace was served by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway from Highgate and Finsbury Park, with intermediary stations at Muswell Hill and Cranley Gardens. The foot of Alexandra Palace was served by another railway line, with connecting services to Finsbury Park and Kings Cross stations.

Most development was initiated in the early 20th century, when the current street pattern was set out and elegant Edwardian retail parades were constructed. The shopping centre is based on roads that form three sides of a square: Fortis Green Road, Muswell Hill Broadway and the extension of the Broadway into Colney Hatch Lane. At each node point is a church: United Reformed, Church of England, Methodist and Roman Catholic; one of the nodes, opposite St James CoE, was also the site of the Athenaeum music hall (later demolished with the site redeveloped as a supermarket), opposite which a surviving art deco Odeon cinema was built in the 1930s. The site of the Ritz, a cinema formerly at the top of Muswell Hill on the next node to the east, has been redeveloped as offices.

The Edgware, Highgate and London Railway was closed in 1954. It had been intended to integrate this route into the London Underground's Northern line, under the Northern Heights plan; some contemporary tube maps (e.g. the 1948 map) showed the line as being under construction. However, this plan was cancelled after the Second World War and the railway line was abandoned. The line was later converted to become the Parkland Walk rail trail.

In 1979, Wetherspoons opened their first pub, on Colney Hatch Lane.

In 2013 and 2020, Muswell Hill was named one of the five most desirable places to live in London in the Sunday Times' "Best Places To Live" guide.