Mill Hill is an ecclesiastical parish, formed in 1836 from the civil parish of Hendon, 3 miles north and 10 from London, and has a station on the Midland railway (1 mile south-west) and one on the Edgware branch of the Great Northern railway (¾ mile south-east).

The village is long and irregular, but is well situated and is a favourite site for villa residences and schools. The church of St. Paul, built about 1832, by William Wilberforce esq. M.P. the distinguished philanthropist, is an edifice of brick in the Early English style, consisting of chancel and nave with a western gallery, and will seat 300 persons. The register dates from the year 1836. The living is a vicarage, yearly value £260, in the gift of the Bishop of London, and held since 1891 by the Rev. Elford Copland Lethbridge M.A. of Hertford College, Oxford. Here are Congregational, Baptist and Wesleyan chapels, and Salvation Army Barracks. St. Joseph’s Catholic College of the Sacred Heart, for foreign missions, standing on an eminence at Mill Hill and founded by His Eminence Cardinal Vaughan, archbishop of Westminster, when bishop of Salford, is a conspicuous edifice of brick, in the Lombardo-Venetian style, from designs by Mr. G. Goldie, architect; the foundation stone was laid by the late Cardinal Manning in 1866: the college is quadrangular in plan, with cloisters on all sides, and has a chapel, with a lofty campanile 100 feet high, surmounted by a bronze gilt statue of St. Joseph, 14 feet in height, which can be seen at a great distance; the chapel services are open to the general public: this college is the first and only English Catholic foreign missionary institution for the conversion and civilization of heathens: students of every nationality are admitted and bind themselves by solemn vows to leave Europe for life upon missionary labours: the grounds of the college cover an area of 45 acres. Here is also a Franciscan convent, dedicated to St. Mary, and a convent of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent, attached to which are large schools and an orphanage, established in 1887, for 250 poor children. Six almshouses were erected here in 1696 at the sole charge of Thomas Nicholl, of this parish, for the use of the poor, each inmate receiving 6s. weekly. At the north-west end of the village is Highwood Hill, where Sir Stamford Raffles and William Wilberforce occupied contiguous houses; the former died at Highwood House, 5 July, 1826; but Wilberforce left Mill Hill in 1831 and died in Cadogan Place, Chelsea, 29 July, 1833. Peter Collinson F.R.S. a distinguished botanist, who died 11 Aug. 1768, formed an unique garden here, which was visited by Linnaeus, who planted in it several trees. The area of Mill Hill is 3,570 acres; the population in 1891 was 2,065.