North Finchley

For the London district, see Finchley.
North Finchley

High rise at Tally Ho Corner
North Finchley
 North Finchley shown within Greater London
OS grid referenceTQ265925
London borough Barnet
Ceremonial county Greater London
RegionLondon
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town LONDON
Postcode district N12
Dialling code 020
Police Metropolitan
Fire London
Ambulance London
EU Parliament London
UK ParliamentFinchley & Golders Green
London Assembly Barnet and Camden
List of places
UK
England
London

Coordinates: 51°37′01″N 0°10′26″W / 51.617°N 0.174°W / 51.617; -0.174

North Finchley is a suburb of London in the London Borough of Barnet, situated 7 miles (11.3 km) north-west of Charing Cross.

Location

North Finchley is centred on Tally Ho Corner, the junction of the roads to East Finchley, Church End, Friern Barnet and Whetstone. Church End is often known as Finchley Central, due to the name of the tube station.

Tally Ho Corner in an old postcard.

Character

It is primarily a residential and shopping area, with several supermarkets and many restaurants. The artsdepot, a local community arts centre including a gallery, a studio and a theatre, opened on 23 October 2004, in an attempt to revitalise the area and to fill a gap created by the demolition of the Gaumont cinema, and what had become an open-air market.

The area has mainly 19th century housing ranging from quaint Victorian cottages to substantially larger Victorian double-fronted houses. There is also a dominant Edwardian style toward Woodside Park and Nether Street but with some modern houses, probably built between the 1930s and 1960s, towards Friern Barnet. On Friern Barnet Lane there are some mansion style properties and on Tally-Ho corner, a development of luxury flats, above the artsdepot with views over Mill Hill and Hertfordshire. There are few Local Authority estates in the area but the largest, and still pleasant, is in Woodside Park where ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton grew up.

Transport

The new North Finchley bus station opened in 2004, but closed several months later due to safety issues after a pensioner walked into the shelter through the wrong entrance, was hit by a bus, and died. The bus station was reopened in March 2007 after safety improvements were implemented.

The bus station is served by routes 82 and 460, and by through routes 221 and 125 to Edgware and Finchley Central, respectively. The Cricketers pub used to stand adjacent to the old bus station.

Balfour House bombing

On 26 July 1994 a bomb exploded outside Balfour House, a prominent building on North Finchley High Street and office of numerous Jewish charities. Earlier, on the same day, a bomb had exploded outside the Israeli embassy.[1] Two Lebanese Palestinians, Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, were subsequently convicted of carrying out the Finchley bombing. "Tally Ho Bombers Lose Court Appeal", Guardian.co.uk, 2001-11-01 

History

Finchley was created an urban district of Middlesex in 1894. In 1932 it was created as the Municipal Borough of Finchley, but in 1965 the municipal borough was abolished and its area became part of the London Borough of Barnet.

Margaret Thatcher was elected as MP for Finchley and Golders Green in 1959.

Geography

See also

References

Media related to North Finchley at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/15/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.