In 1808 this became one of a line of telegraph stations stretching from the Admiralty to Great Yarmouth, erected as part of Britain's national defences. Only the name, Telegraph Hill, remains; it has been covered with housing (the Telegraph Hill south-east corner of Childs Hill is now inside the boundary of the London Borough of Camden). An Act of Parliament in 1826 enabled Finchley Road giving a new road to the north other than two further east through hillier and higher, sometimes narrow urban lanes, which met at Highgate; it was completed by 1829. It had a tollgate at the Castle Public House. The road has a double-width bypass skirting Childs Hill. In the early 1850s a Colonel Evans speculatively built "The Mead", where brickworks had been, renamed Granville Road, the street name today. By the 1870s laundries were a major local industry. The last, the Initial Laundry in Granville Road, closed in 2006. Childs Hill has streets of leafy semi-detached and relatively plain terraced housing. It is also characterised by four high rise blocks of flats and some blocks of mid-rise apartments. The first block of the four was built by the building company Tersons for the Metropolitan Police in about 1956. These were homes for police families. Orchard Mead House, on the Finchley Road, later became Quarters/homes for armed/other emergency Services families for a short time before moving into the private sector. The second and third blocks, in Granville Road were built in about 1960, by the local borough as housing in the local community. The fourth block, presumed to be the same, was built some time later. Childs Hill has a public library, as well as a square park, Childs Hill park, which also contains the Childs Hill Bowls Club, several shops and restaurants, small businesses, offices, primary schools and two churches (All Saints C of E with Primary School and Childs Hill Baptist, whose pastor of over 30 years is Gary Brady). At the Western extreme on the Hendon Way, is the Palm Hotel, formerly the Garth Hotel. Alexei Sayle's short story "Barcelona Plates" goes into some detail as its protagonist stays there for a while, noting, amongst many other features, the idiosyncratic design of the building, an amalgamation of suburban houses. It has an off-centre park, Basing Hill Park. Golders Hill Park borders the east of its area; over half of it is included in two purely Childs Hill census output areas though it borders too Golders Green.