The placename Sunny and its variant Sunning may be of ancient origin. The 18th century fields were named as Sunny Hill Fields. There is a Sunnyfield in Mill Hill off Lawrence Street.
One unlikely, if romantic, surmise is that they are derived from the name of the Romano-British settlement at Brockley Hill, just off Watling Street, Sulloniacae. Evidence of a flourishing pottery industry in the first and second centuries AD has been found. Brockley Hill is visible from Sunny Hill Park. [Entry in Princeton encyclopaedia of classical sites]
A Roman villa was possibly located at the Grove in the Burroughs – judging by fragments of tiled pavement, millstones, roof tiles and kitchen pottery. Excavations at Church Terrace by HADAS (Hendon & District Archaeological Society) revealed fourth century Roman ceramic fragments, but no building was identified. An urn burial containing charcoal and the ashes of an adolescent was found in the rear garden of 111 Sunny Gardens Road – the cremation jar (Highgate Wood Type Roman pottery) of the late first-early second century is now in Church Farm Museum. A coin of Hadrian (117-138 AD) was also found in Sunny Gardens Road. A Roman track ran across to Copthall - where some 130 native and Roman sherds of mid-late first century pottery were found associated with the 21 foot wide cambered pebble road surface, but its route is unknown. The main Roman road of Watling Street lay on lower ground through Edgware.
In the Domesday book, Hendon is described in 1086: "Handone, the Abbot of St Peter’s, holds." 45 males are listed, including a priest, suggesting a population of 250 or more. There was enough woodland to feed 1000 pigs. There were at least 11 ploughs and several hundred acres of arable land. It was worth £8. Hendon is derived from the Old English ‘At The High Down’. St Mary's is probably of Saxon origin; evidence of Saxon buildings and domestic ware has been found throughout the area.
In 1320 part of the forest was cleared as far as to 'Down-hegge' (Downage). Clearances continued over the next centuries.
One curiosity: Edward Longmore, a giant, the Herefordshire Colossus, was buried on Feb. 4, 1777 in St Mary's churchyard. He measured seven feet six inches in his coffin. His corpse was stolen about six weeks later, even though it was buried in a grave fifteen feet deep, which had been watched till nearly the time of the robbery - see Lyson's pages on Hendon in British History online.
In the medieval period, Hendon remained a manor belonging to Westminster. Monks were sent there to convalesce. The abbot had a manor house, its exact location unknown; a new one was built for him in 1326, along Parson Street. This became known as Hendon Place and then Tenterden Hall, being variously altered and rebuilt until demolition in 1936. The last manor court – the Court Leet – was held at the White Bear in 1916.
Wheat was still being grown on Sunny Hill in 1880. R J Bowerman, a solicitor in Gray's Inn, embarked on developing Sunningfields Road and Sunny Gardens Road in 1882; he was already developing property in Kensington. In 1922 Hendon Urban District Council created the park (Ref: British History online)
During WWII, houses in Sunningfields Road were requisitioned by the RAF to house personnel from Hendon airfield - see RAF museum: history of aviation.
See the map of Hendon by J Cary: 15 Miles Round London, 1785
We have another page of more maps & more historical documents.