Cricklewood

Cricklewood is a town in North West London, England, in the London Boroughs of Barnet and Brent. The Crown pub, now the Clayton Crown Hotel, is a local landmark and lies 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Charing Cross. Cricklewood was a small rural hamlet around Edgware Road, the Roman road which was later called Watling Street and which forms the boundary of the two boroughs that share Cricklewood. The area urbanised after the arrival of the surface and underground railways in nearby Willesden Green in the 1870s. The shops on Cricklewood Broadway, as Edgware Road is known here, contrast with quieter surrounding streets of largely late-Victorian, Edwardian, and 1930s housing. The area has strong links with Ireland due to a sizeable Irish population. The 35-hectare (86-acre) Gladstone Park lies on the area's western periphery. Cricklewood has two conservation areas, the Mapesbury Estate and the Cricklewood Railway Terraces, and in 2012 was awarded £1.65 million from the Mayor of London's office to improve the area. The town is also famous due to it being where The Goodies business is based.