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Finchley
Finchley maps
Historic maps of Finchley and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Finchley maps
Finchley area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Finchley and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Finchley
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Finchley.
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Summer Days
This photo brings back the - what seemed - endless summer days of the 50's and 60's when we would go with our togs and sandwiches (probably jam) in the care of an older friend and queue for tickets for the day. Our parents sometimes were working or didn't like to go because of the noise and excitement of the children. We were so lucky to have a such a great facility nearby - I lived in East Finchley - so there was the added bonus of a bus ride! How lucky we were to have such freedom. A treat was a couple of bob for a drink and icecream I remember getting very burnt one day and my mother covering me with calamine lotion - I always associate this smell with my childhood. Ah happy days!!
Late Teens Spent in The Tally Ho
I spent my first eighteen years in Finchley, and used to come back to drink in the Tally Ho pub with other Christ's College boys. You can see the pub in the distance on the right (it still looks the same today). The building on the left became Owen and Owens department store, which remained a loved part of Finchley - until it closed about ten years ago.
Finchleyswimmingpool
Wonderful memories of the hot summers of the late 1950s and 1960s, visiting the pool most weekends and during the school holidays. I learned to swim there. Hearing the announcements over the tannoy, the smell of Peanut Brittle and Nivea. Collecting soft drink bottles for the deposit, the St. John Ambulance hut, etc.etc.
Whitethorn Morris Dance at The College Farm Open Day
The bright sun shone beautifully on the Country Fair of Sunday 5th April. It brought lightly-clad queues to the payboxes and tea rooms of College Farm - between Allandale Avenue and Fitzalan Road.
The music came from both the Borehamwood Band, and later for the dance display by Whitethorn Morris. The dancers performed the traditional clog dances of Lancashire and Cheshire accompanied by the tambourines, drums and accordions of the Whitethorn Band.
The dance display was beautifully dressed and presented with great panache by smiling lasses who certainly knew how to captivate their audience. They were applauded and cheered to the echo.
I was there with my piano accordian to lead the band and really enjoyed myself - these events at College Farm are superbly organised and this particular day proved to be the first of many invitations to perform there.
Growing up in Finchley
I was brought up in Finchley from the time I was born in 1968 to when we left in 1984 and I have very many happy memories. We lived at 5 North Crescent and I remember the parade of shops between the two entrances to the road - with Mrs King the chemist, Mrs Thomas who owned the sweetshop (she sold sweets in big glass jars!), Ben the grocer, Stan the butcher, T Lees TV (which used to repair TV's and have a very strange smell!) and Klage the Plumbers - we were on first name terms with all of them and my sister and I often used to go to the shops on errands for our mother. There was an alley behind the shops (a kind of service road) where we used to explore. Sometimes we would walk up to the shopping parade at the junction of Regents Park Road and East End Road to pay the paper bill at Farlanes the newsagent. There was also a camera repair... Read more
Greater London memories
Village Road, Finchley
I was born at number 7, Village Road, Finchley in 1932 and lived there until October 1939 when my dad's businesses in London were requisitioned. Lots of memories. Milk was delivered by United Dairies and the horse would always spend a penny right outside our house leaving a horrid green puddle. 'Old Fishy' delivered his wares every Friday walking from house to house with a big wicker basket, followed by the local mongrels hoping to get a bite of an overhanging tail. Then we had Walls ice-cream with the tricycle and bell announcing the ice-cream man's arrival. The road was unadopted which meant that it was private, and once each year a chain had to be put across each end to reserve our ownership. It was gravel, not tarmac, then. Dad had a fish tank and I was detailed to go to the stream (River Lea?) behind our garden and catch little larvae to feed the fish. I went to Hendon Preparatory School in 1937 for a couple of years until... Read more
North Finchley - Various Memories
We lived in North Finchley between 1966 and 1978 so I was ten in 1976 and my sister was 7. We were allowed to walk to Tally Ho corner at that age, all the way from home at Friern Watch Avenue. Memories of those forays into town, perhaps not in dateline or chronological 'shop' order, but more with nostalgic licence would include passing the very old fashioned and austere Ashbeys where our school uniform came from; Jones's bakery who did the most gorgeous cakes and the snug tea-shop upstairs; MacFisheries which then became MacMarket but still had a fish tank by the fish counter and an eel swimming about in it; W H SMiths, where every year I'd enter the Win A Pony competition; Woolworths, until it burned down and was headlined by the Barnet Press as 'Biggest Blaze Since The Blitz'; Owen Owens which was fab at Christmas as the basement turned into the toy department, and the top floor had a wonderful restaurant with a huge modern art... Read more
