Living in Finchley: area guide to homes, schools and transport

Its emblem is a finch, its landmark a naked lady, the other joys of Finchley are its good schools, transport and spacious family homes with gardens.
Highland cattle graze at College Farm, Finchley, built by the Express Dairy in 1883. Image: Denis Jones
Anthea Masey12 February 2016

Covering a long, thin finger of north London, Finchley stretches from Hampstead Heath in the south to Whetstone in the north. Its emblem is the finch and the name is thought to be a contraction of “Finches’ clearing”. Its most famous landmarks are two statues: the Art Deco archer on top of East Finchley Tube station and La Déliverance, a woman with her arms outstretched — known locally as The Naked Lady — at Henlys Corner.


The area will forever be linked with Margaret Thatcher, of course, who was Finchley’s MP from 1959 to 1992. But the town’s heart belongs to comedian Spike Milligan, who lived in Woodside Park for many years and helped in a campaign to stop the demolition of a row of cottages — helping in the process to give birth to the Finchley Society.

Properties

Finchley divides into three distinct neighbourhoods: East Finchley, Finchley proper and North Finchley, which includes Woodside Park.

East Finchley is the most southerly of the three districts and the one with the most urban feel. “The North Circular Road is a rubicon; south of the road still feels like London; north of the road and it is definitely the suburbs,” says Nigel Ellis of estate agents Prickett & Ellis.

The N2 East Finchley postcode includes two of London’s most expensive roads: The Bishops Avenue and Winnington Road. These long streets on the edge of Hampstead Garden Suburb are where mainly international buyers are happy to spend as much as £10 million for a house.
 

Compared with this, prices in the rest of East Finchley appear modest. There is a popular enclave of Victorian and Edwardian houses in Eastern, Western and Southern roads, where cottages sell from £700,000 and large houses from £1.2 million.

There are pretty Arts and Crafts-inspired Twenties and Thirties houses and cottages in the last-completed section of Hampstead Garden Suburb, between Lyttelton Road and East End Road, with Brim Hill at its centre. Houses there start at about £800,000.

Central Finchley starts at the North Circular, north of Henlys Corner. The most popular roads are Dollis and Hendon Avenues, where large detached Edwardian houses sell for upwards of £1.5 million.

Also popular are Fitzalan Road and Allandale Avenue, where Edwardian houses back on to the attractive Victorian buildings of College Farm, once a model farm built by Sir George Barham, the founder of the Express Dairy, but now a tack and pet shop outlet.

North Finchley is the most affordable of the three areas. The best road is Friern Watch Avenue, where mainly Twenties semi-detached houses sell from £700,000. Spacious flats at the towering block 100 Kingsway, at Tally Ho Corner, start at about £300,000.

Finchley is full of family-size houses and East Finchley, in particular, is popular with young families who have swapped a flat in a more central location for a house with a garden.
 

Staying power

A wide variety of properties enables people to move up and down the property ladder and many do stay within the area. Which are the best roads is a matter of taste but The Bishops Avenue and Winnington Road are the most expensive by a long stretch; others might prefer Hendon and Dollis Avenues.

From £300,000: spacious flats with balconies at the 100 Kingsway tower, Tally Ho Corner in North Finchley. The block sits above an arts complex
Barry Phillips

What’s new

No big changes are on the horizon, although small blocks of new flats built on infill sites are becoming a feature.

The well-maintained Art Deco houses in and around Ossulton Way are under-appreciated. The village at Church End is a charming enclave of 25 pairs of Arts and Crafts semi-detached cottages, all different and overlooking a village green.
 

Travel

Finchley is connected to central London via the Northern line. East Finchley is in Zone 3 (annual travel card £1,288), while Finchley Central, West Finchley and Woodside Park are all in Zone 4 (annual travel card £1,576).

Council tax

Barnet council (which is Conservative controlled) has a Band D council tax rate for 2010/2011 of £1,423.02.

St Mary’s Church in Hendon Lane, Finchley
Barry Phillips


Photographs by Barry Phillips

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

There are four distinct shopping areas. In East Finchley there is a handful of gems, in particular the Cherry Tree for gifts; Koko for shoes, including from top French designer Thierry Rabotin, and there’s Black Gull Books for second-hand titles with fascia and bookmarks designed by printmaker Jonny Hannah.

There’s also a lovely café called Dan & Decarlo, and The Bald Faced Stag, a very popular pub serving good food. The Market Place is on the A1 where Falloden Way meets Lyttelton Road. It has smart kitchen and bathroom shops and a handful of cafés and patisseries.

Central Finchley’s shops are found along Ballards Lane, close to the Tube, but for such an apparently well-heeled area they look rather sad and run-down.

There is a busy Tesco, but branches of Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and some high street chain stores can be found in North Finchley.

Schools

Primary

All areas of Finchley have a good selection of top-performing primary schools.

Comprehensive

There are good state secondary schools, too — in particular, St Michael’s RC, a girls’ grammar school, and the mixed Wren Academy, which opened in 2008 in new buildings. Both of these schools are in North Finchley and judged “outstanding” by Ofsted. Henrietta Barnett is a girls’ grammar school in Hampstead Garden Suburb that is also judged outstanding.

Private

Two private schools are King Alfred School on the edge of Hampstead Heath (mixed, four to 18) and Mill Hill School (mixed, three to 18).

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