[2] Historically Monken Hadley was a civil parish of Middlesex forming part of a small protrusion into Hertfordshire.

19th century historians took the parish to have been "formerly a hamlet to Edmonton ... on the east side of the great north road, eleven miles from London".

As of 1827 that house had surviving "Chimney-pieces ... in alto-relievo: on one is sculptured the story of Sampson; the other represents many passages in the life of our Saviour, from his birth in the stall to his death on the cross".

Although the retreat of the forces of Lord William Hastings (at the hands of the Earl of Oxford) took place in the parish of Barnet, all of the other key engagements were within Monken Hadley parish, including the historically significant death of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, believed to be at the place where a monument now stands on the Great North Road.

Sir Roger Wilbraham (1553–1616), Solicitor-General for Ireland, lived here towards the end of his life and is buried in the church, where his family monument is still visible.

As of 1804 the boys' school's endowment totalled £103 10 shillings and by 1827 it had 70 "day-scholars", twenty of whom were allowed £1 towards clothing and given free tuition, whilst the rest paid 2d a week.

[2] By 1827 the parish covered "580 acres, including 240 allotted in lieu of the common enclosure of Enfield Chase" and the manor was owned by Peter Moore, Esq.

The writers Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard lived for a time in Lemmons, a house near the Common, where their friend the Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis died.

The parish and church were heavily influenced by tractarianism and the Oxford Movement,[8] and it remains a focus of eucharistic worship within the surrounding district.