Church End, Finchley
Church End is a locality within Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Aside from its church it centres on Finchley Central Underground station. Church End is an old village, now a suburban development, centred north-northwest of Charing Cross.
Toponymy
Church End was named in 1683. The name, which refers to the parish church of Finchley, St Mary, is formed from Middle English 'churche' and 'ende' and means 'district by the church'. The name Finchley Church End is a ward in Barnet.Geography
The main road runs on a south–north axis, and is called Regents Park Road from the North Circular Road until it reaches the road bridge at Finchley Central station, where the name changes to Ballards Lane. Its heart is the ancient district around St Mary's Church, where the imposing brick tower of Pardes House Primary School is a landmark.Amenities
There is a public library in Regents Park Road in Gateway House, a new building facing the junction with Hendon Lane. The library was relocated in September 2017 from its former home in Hendon Lane, next to the church. To the north, along Regents Park Road and Ballards Lane, close to the station, is a retail district with a Victorian and Edwardian shopping parade as well as a couple of pubs and modern shops including Sainsbury's and Tesco.Further north, Victoria Park is the home of the Finchley Carnival, a large fun fair held every year in July, dating back to 1905. Victoria Park has a lawn bowls and croquet club with a modern clubhouse.
To the southeast along East End Road are two institutions of note: Avenue House, built in 1859 and home to the Finchley Society, and a Jewish cultural centre, the Sternberg Centre. Avenue House was the home of Henry "Inky" Stephens,, a former local MP, who left Avenue House to "the people of Finchley" on his death in 1918. The house and ten acres of fine landscaped gardens and parkland open to the public are now run by a local charitable trust. In February 2014 the estate was relaunched and rebranded, in conjunction with a Heritage Lottery Fund bid, as Stephens House and Gardens. "Inky" Stephens was the son of Dr Henry Stephens, who founded the Stephens Ink Company, the first producers of "Blue-Black Writing Fluid" in 1832. A small museum, The Stephens Collection, commemorates this invention and the Stephens family, along with the history of writing materials including many photographs and artefacts. In 2016 the museum closed temporarily in order to move to a new location within the estate's new Visitor Centre established within the former stables block.
South, along Regents Park Road, is College Farm, the last farm in Finchley, and a statue, referred to locally as "The Naked Lady", but more properly named La Délivrance.
History
Hendon Lane and the Church
Finchley's oldest church, St Mary-at-Finchley, was established sometime in the 12th century, early documents mention it from the 1270s, and by 1356 it was dedicated to St Mary.The building has been altered many times since its foundation and the oldest parts, the north wall and the tower, date from the reign of Henry VII. The organ, which dates from 1878, was from Henry Willis & Sons, the famous organ builders. In the churchyard are the graves of Thomas Payne, the radical and bookseller, and Major John Cartwright the political reformer.
Next to the church in Hendon Lane stood the Old Queen’s Head, which took its name from Queen Anne, and was owned by the Finchley Charities. In 1833 the original inn burned down and was rebuilt, surviving until the lease on the house came up in 1857. The rector of Finchley, Thomas Reader White, refused to renew the lease on the house and the inn did not move to its present location as the , in East End Road until the 1860s. White renamed the buildings Finchley Hall and used it to house a school of the same name which later became Christ's College Finchley. In 1902 Finchley Council took over the hall for offices but bomb damage made the building unsafe and they were demolished shortly after. Church End Library occupied the site to about 2015.
From 1787 to 1880 a cage for criminals stood between the Church and the Old Queen’s Head. The Anglican community established a National school in 1813 which was rebuilt as St Mary's School in 1852. In 1990 the school was re-established near to the brook at Dollis Park and now only the infants' section, built in 1902, remains on the original location. The site of the main school building is now occupied by Barnet Civil and Family Courts Centre, which opened in 1993. It was announced in 2014 that the adjacent former infants' section building, having survived a threat of demolition, would enjoy a change of use and become a synagogue.
Finchley's old rectory, first mentioned in 1476, also stood near the church and in 1810 was chiefly built of timber, with roofs of slate and tiles. Ralph Worsley, rector 1794–1848, went to live at Moss Hall in Nether Street, which his wife had inherited, whereupon the rectory house was leased. One of the first actions of Thomas Reader White, rector 1848–77, was to replace the old house with one to the north, built in stock brick to the design of Anthony Salvin. In 1974 a smaller rectory was built to the west and the Victorian one was demolished. During the English Civil War, the church's old Norman font was buried in the rectory garden; it was rediscovered in Victorian times and now stands in the church.
In 1888 Finchley Council established a voluntary fire brigade in Hendon Lane near the top of Gravel Hill which remained at this location until 1933. In 1904 Finchley obtained the first motorised fire engine in Great Britain . Gravel Hill gets its name from the gravel pits which dotted the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the top of Gravel Hill a house, now converted into apartments, stands on the site of the old village pond, which was filled in around 1900.
Close by is Finchley Garden Village which was developed around a green in 1910 as a small garden suburb. At the bottom of Hendon Lane is a lane curiously named Crooked Usage. Originally a part of Hendon Lane, its picturesque name dates from the straightening of Hendon Lane in 1911–12.
Regents Park Road and Ballards Lane
Until the 1820s the only route north from Temple Fortune to Finchley was along a road called Ducksetters Lane. This ran close to the present Regents Park Road, and terminated where the junction with Gravel Hill is today. The road then passed along the very top part of Hendon Lane, before continuing north as Ballards Lane. There had been a number of larger houses in Ballards Lane since the 15th century of which only the 18th-century Cornwall House in Cornwall Avenue, now remains.public house was a licensed property by the middle of the 18th century and may have originally been the King’s Head. It was substantially rebuilt in the 1960s and was later called The Dignity. The pub closed in October 2016 and was replaced by a chicken restaurant. In June 2019, after a largely local campaign, the restaurant closed and was turned into a pub again, retaking the name The King Of Prussia. It occupies the ground floor of a six-storey block containing offices and the Travelodge Finchley.
In 1826 an Act of Parliament meant the construction of a new turnpike road between Marylebone and North Finchley which, in Church End, is now called Regents Park Road and replaced Ducksetters Lane. The people of Finchley continued to use the old lane as the tollgate, situated in Ballards Lane at the junction of Nether Street, meant that parishioners had to pay to use their main thoroughfare. After much protest the gate was moved to just south of the junction of East End Road and was shortly afterwards removed. It was commemorated with a blue plaque put up at the Queen’s Head by the Finchley Society, but the pub closed in 2012 and is now apartments.
In the late 1830s or early 1840s Peter Kay established a garden nursery on the site now occupied by Tesco on Ballards Lane, which closed in 1889, and in 1874 William Clements started a nursery on a triangular plot at the junction of Regents Park Road and Hendon Lane. Ford Madox Brown lived at 1 Grove Villas on Regents Park Road between 1853 and 1855 where he painted a number of agricultural scenes and, most notably, " The Last of England".
In 1867 Finchley and Hendon station was opened by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway which became later Finchley station and finally, in 1940, Finchley Central station. The establishment of a railway and the removal of the tollgates enabled the development of residential streets and a row of shops, Albert Terrace and . This was demolished in 1962 and replaced with an office block, and on the ground floor a pub called The Minstrel, which became The Central and then a wine bar and restaurant, now closed.
The area was still a village until news of a possible tramline between Golders Green and North Finchley encouraged suburban development. From the railway station north as far as Long Lane parades of were built from 1893 onwards, and were well established when in 1909 the trams were introduced. In 1911 King Edward's Hall replaced Clements' nursery and was used as a VAD hospital during World War I.
The Alcazar Cinema between Princes Avenue and Redbourne Avenue was renamed the Bohemia in 1915 and during the 1920s relocated south to where Gateway House was later built. Gateway House was demolished at the end of 2015 and the site has been redeveloped, now containing a new public library and a small supermarket, with five floors of apartments above.
At the northern end of the shopping area is Finchley Police Station, which closed in 2012 and in 2019 still awaits redevelopment. There had been a police station in Finchley from 1873 but the present location dates from 1886 when Wentworth Lodge in Ballards Lane was bought. The old police station continued from 1889 until 1965 when it was rebuilt.
Across the road from the police station is Victoria Park. Opened in 1902, it was intended to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and was Finchley's first public park. It contains a playground, tennis courts, a cafe and a lawn bowls and croquet club with two greens. From 1905 Victoria Park was the location of the Finchley Carnival.