Discover Colindale NW9 – London's Birthplace of Civil Aviation
Colindale NW9 carries a history that most visitors to the area do not expect. In 1910, the pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White established an aerodrome on the fields here that became the focal point of early British aviation — the Hendon Aerodrome hosted the country's first great public air shows, drew crowds of tens of thousands to watch biplanes complete circuit races above the northwest London skyline, and staged the inaugural Aerial Derby in 1912. That heritage is honoured today by the RAF Museum London, which occupies the original aerodrome site on Grahame Park Way and holds one of the world's great aviation collections across a campus of free-entry hangars — more than a hundred aircraft from Sopwith Camels and Spitfires through to Cold War jets and beyond, set alongside the very ground where British flight found its public audience. Less well known is that Colindale was also home for most of the twentieth century to the British Library's newspaper collection at Colindale Avenue — the largest archive of newspapers in the world, housing millions of editions dating back centuries, until the collection moved to Yorkshire in 2019. Grahame Park estate, named directly after the pioneer aviator, covers a substantial portion of the postcode and is currently undergoing one of the most significant housing regeneration programmes in North London, gradually replacing the original 1970s blocks with a new mixed-tenure neighbourhood. The Metropolitan Police's training college on Aerodrome Road brings a distinctive institutional presence to NW9, while the streets between the Broadway and Colindale Avenue hold a quiet residential character that reflects decades of settled community life away from the busier surrounding districts.