Named after the road to Edgware, which follows the Roman Watling Street.
Unusually in London, it runs for 10 miles in an almost perfectly straight line, north-west from Marble Arch to Edgware; along the way stretches take other names, such as Maida Vale, Kilburn High Road and Cricklewood Broadway. Before the Romans it was an ancient trackway in the Great Middlesex Forest. Edgware means Ecgi's weir, a fishing pool.