The Dollis Hill Estate was formed in the early 19th Century, when the Finch family bought up a number of farms in the area to form a single estate. Dollis Hill House itself was built in the 1820s.
William Ewart Gladstone, the UK Prime Minister, was a frequent visitor to Dollis Hill House in the late 19th Century. The year after his death, 1899, Willesden Council acquired much of the Dollis Hill Estate for use as a public park, which was named Gladstone Park.
Mark Twain stayed in Dollis Hill House in the summer of 1900. He wrote that 'Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever occupied'.
The code-breaking Colossus computer, used at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, was built at the Post Office Research Station in Dollis Hill. The station closed at the end of the 1970s.
The fictional Dollis Hill Football Club features occasionally in the British satirical magazine Private Eye, and Dollis Hill tube station is frequently played in spoof radio panel game Mornington Crescent.