History of North Finchley

• North End was first recorded in 1462 as a hamlet village, part of Finchley Wood (Swan Lane Open Space west of Whetstone High Road is an old section left of Finchley common). It was known as North End until the 1880’s, but was more historically known as Finchley Common. The area now refers to North Finchley and Totteridge and Whetstone.

• Tally Ho gets its name from a coaching company with the same name. When the Great North Road & the New Road joined, Tally Ho acted as a staging post. It was at this time that the Torrington Pub established itself. The Tally Ho pub was built in 1927, replacing the 1860’s Park Hotel.

• The Woodhouse area is named after the three original houses in the area. By the C18th a single house bearing the same name was built on the site, now Woodhouse College.

• During the 1948 Olympics, an art deco outdoor swimming pool on the land where the lido sits today was used for Water Polo. The Olympic sized swimming pool was replaced with one a third the size.

• The Arts Depot opened in 2004 on the site of the demolished Gaumont Cinema, being used as an open air market. The Gaumont Theatre (see picture below) opened in 1937 and was well suited to the up-market community of Finchley. It closed in 1980 ad was demolished in 1987 (the current position of The Bath Store would have been the cinema as entrance). The mighty Compton Organ that once played at the cinema now sits in The Plough pub, near Ware Herts.

• Finchley Football Club was founded in 1874 on the Glebelands. Ken Aston (a late president of the club) is the man who started the red/yellow card system still used in football internationally today. Wingate (named after the founder of the Israeli army General Orde C. Wingate) merged with Finchley, as a result of financial strains to become the New Wingate & Finchley F.C known today.

• Woodside Park Station was opened in 1872 as Torrington Park Station renamed in 1882. This is the area where the parish of Christ Church was established and in 1870 reported the area had a mere 350 dwellings.

• Torrington Park was the name of the land that was sold for residential development Woodhouse Park Estate which included the construction of a hall. Woodside Hall itself converted into Woodside Park Synagogue in 1885.

• Woodside Park Garden Suburb was really developed in the 1920’s when Fred Ingram created a new housing estate, with only 8 houses per acre, with own local shops and station into London. It was first surrounded by open fields and the old manor houses like Moss Hall, then called Little Angels.

• The Finchley Society was set up in 1971 to save cottages on Lodge Lane. Sir John Betjeman was the first president followed by the very locally active Spike Milligan.

• Lodge Lane, N12, was home to Private John Parr, who was the first British soldier killed in WW1 and David Jason. David Jason lived in a house in the car park where Finchley Market is held today.

• Charles Dickens wrote Martin Chuzzlewit whilst at Cobley’s farm or Fallow Farm in North Finchley, which sat in the heart of all the hamlets of Finchley.

• Trade in Whetstone established along the Great North Road, the Bull and Butcher was licensed in 1765. Called Whetstone after the Whet stone soldiers reportedly used to sharpen their knives on their way to the Battle of Barnet.

North Finchley, History Of.

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History of Finchley Central

Finchley Central, History Of.

• Was originally, and sometimes still referred to as Church End, the oldest recorded medieval village in the Finchley woodlands. It was a small village on a hilltop site. As an area it had more residents than the other Finchley’’s, and was referred to as part of Hendon until 1930’s.

• The area (now focused around Ballards Lane) became known as Finchley Central when station changed its name in 1940.

• The Chequers Pub (NW4), rebuilt in the 1890’s, is an example of the original buildings of the small village, just a few cottages along 3 roads.

• The area was known for its Hay trade; in 1703 Joseph maxon described the area saying “they manage their compost heaps the best in the kingdom.”

• St Mary’s Church on Hendon Lane is Finchley’s oldest church and was built in the C12th, Saxon in origin, Norman in foundations and numerous extensions. In the graveyard are the graves of Thomas Payne (bookseller), Sir Stamford Raffles (founder of London Zoo) and political reformer John Cartwright.

• Church End Library, next to St Mary’s, is on the site of a pub, the Old Queens Head. The original building burnt down, and rebuilt but the rector refused to renew the license and the pub moved. The building was then used by Christ College up until 1902 when it was used by the council. During WWII the building was extensively bombed and had to be rebuilt into the current building. In between the church and the old pub between 1787 and 1880 there used to be a cage rose, which was used as punishment for criminals. The Queens Head pub was moved to its current location in mid C19th.

• Church Farm Museum (also now in Hendon, but part of Church End traditionally) is a Grade II listed building from mid C17th, and is what remains of the original Church Farm. By the end of C19th the hay ceased to be profitable, non-crop related transport replacing horses. The trade was so influential to the development in the Church End.

• Unique to London, Finchley has a city farm, College Farm. College Farm was opened by Express Diaries in 1883. It was a celebrated Victorian tourist destination and showplace of the Dairy Industry. It was primarily a visitor’s centre by 1909.

• Cromwell House on Cromwell Avenue is the only remaining manor houses that used to sit in the area.

• The tube station was originally Finchley & Hendon, on the line that ran from Finsbury Park to Edgeware (part of the Northern Heights Plan). It opened in 1867 in what was then rural Middlesex, still merely a village at the time. It is the home station to Harry Beck who designed the modern day Tube Map (a plaque is situated on southern platform). Harry Beck lived at 60 Courthouse Gardens.

• The Dignity Pub sits on a site where centuries of pubs have sat. The King of Prussia was licensed there in the C18th. Barclays Bank sits on the site of a field first converted to St Maragets’s Church, demolished for the building of the bank.

• Victoria Park was Finchley’s first park and opened in 1902 to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and has hosted Finchley Carnival since 1905.

• The area urbanized when Finchley Common became enclosed in 1816. The area had no more than 250 households until the C19th.

• In 1826 a new road was constructed between Finchley and London’s Marylebone via Temple Fortune replacing the old small gravel path, Ducksetters Lane. This is now called Regents Park road and at the junction of Ballards Lane there was a tollgate (moved after much protest to East End Road).

• Ballards Lane, or ‘Barrows Lane’, was named in 1421 (probably by the Ballards Family) and was known as the Upper Road (Nether Street being the Under Road), both described in 1365 as ‘old’ streets. It did not always connect to North Finchley Highroad, it ended where Victoria Park is located today, connected to Tally Ho corner in 1756. It originally was a small pathway that connected Church End to Finchley Common.

• The shops and high street of Ballards Lane today break up showing the history of field boundaries and time they were sold (and developed).

• Nether Street was an access road to properties on the land such as Moss Hall and Brent Lodge. Brentlodge was built in the early C19th, and demolished in 1962 despite the efforts of Spike Milligan and the Finchley Society. It is often said that Finchley has been careless of its past with bulldozers. Brent Lodge along with others was living history of the area. Since the 1960’s there have been dramatic changes to the area

Relevant Articles

History of Finchley

History of North Finchley

History of East Finchley

Northern Line History

History of Kings Cross/ St Pancras

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London's Secret History: Q Whitehall

History of Monument

Local Links
House Clearance Finchley, London

History of Finchley

History of Finchley Including the Following Articles:
• East Finchley (History Of)
• North Finchley (History Of)
• Finchley Central (History Of)

There are no natural boundaries to Finchley and no record in the Doomsday Book (UK’s first consensus) back in 1086 as it was part of the Bishop of London’s land (part of his estate at Fulham) since AD700, part of an ancient parish covering around 2899 acres. Finchley has been a district of Greater London Borough of Barnet since 1965; previously it was part of the County of Middlesex, an Urban District Council of Finchley since 1895.

What we know as the three centers of Finchley, East, North and Central were once 3 small seperate settlements on available fertile land, the majority of the ground being made up of hard clay, with paths connecting the three.

The settlements were called Church End (now known as Finchley Central), East End (East Finchley) and North End (North Finchley & Whetstone). The area was woodlands, and fights between the Bishop and the men of Finchley were common - the wood was used as resources for the people and this was often objected by the Bishop. Conflict between the three settlements has also been noted in history.

By the C16th most of the woodland had cleared (the only bit remaining today is in Coppetts Wood) and Finchley Common was established. The area is referred to as a common by Thomas Culpepper in 1652, but Finchley Wood in 1596 by John Gerard. The earliest use of the term common for the area refers to London’s Plague refugees in 1603.

It was a village outside of London. In 1625 a Londoner moved to Finchley to escape the Plague, creating fear amongst the locals. Villagers’ would threaten to set fire to a man travelling from London (who mostly died of the plague on their travels) to stop them from resting in the area. Its geographical positioning into the city especially after the introduction fo The Great North Road, and open unihabited space gave it a reputation for Highway Men.

In 1811 Parliament passed an Act of Enclosure (meaning the land Finchley Common was to be sectioned off and fenced, given to the Parish of Finchley) becoming the responsibility of the landowner leaving ‘fuel areas’ such as Coppett Wood and Cherry Tree Woods. Before this from the mid C17th the area was often used as a military encampment.

Most of the building took place in the C17th, and by 1920 Church End, North End and East End were joined by buildings. The buildings in the area suggest the Victorian and Edwardian period, and was integrated into London along with a lot of other areas and focused around the available transport links.

The name Finchley itself is an Anglo-Saxon one, the ‘ley’ on the end suggests an ‘opening of woodland’, and ‘finch’ being clearing wood. It was not an area developed by the Romans, much more Anglo Saxon as there is little evidence of the straight roads. Romans did however, visit the area as there has been evidence of pottery and coins, the area was hilly though and so the straight roads were built either side of the area, Ermine Street in the East and Watling Street to the West.

It lies (although not all so visible anymore) in between the River Brent and Brent Brook, which has tributaries such as Strawberry Vale Brook, Dollis Brook (Dollis coming from the Anglo Saxon word Dwllice meaning erratic) and Mutton Brook (called so due to the high quantity of sheep washing). It has a distinctive triangle shape, like that of the leg of a mutton lamb with East Finchley South narrow at the bottom, widening, going north to North Finchley and North West to Finchley Central. The North Circular Road was constructed in the 1920’s following the line of Brent and Strawberry Vale Brooks.

MAPS OF LOCAL AREA & FINCHLEY COMMON:

1786

1800

1814

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Finchley Past & Present Photograph Book

Book on Finchley's Suspicious Death's

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