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By Tony Roberts |
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Regular readers will know that Finchley’s earliest main routes were Ballard’s Lane and East End Road, followed in the late 1300's by the Bishop of London’s High Road, built to avoid muddy, Colney Hatch/Friern Barnet Lane as the City of London’s route north. It wasn’t until the 1820's that the Finchley Road/Regent’s Park Road turnpike was constructed, obliterating the meandering Ducksetter’s Lane and providing a new route from Westminster. In the 1890's East Finchley residents might have had a cable car like the one in San Francisco. Originating on Highgate Hill, local residents there prevented expansion northwards in case it attracted the wrong people. However, a widened Archway Road brought the electric tram in 1905, not long before the cable cars were scrapped anyway. 1913-4 brought parliamentary sanction for a North Junction Railway, connecting Wood Green to Brentwood, to be routed from East Finchley through the Mutton Brook Valley. The War intervened and it was abandoned. Construction of the North Circular road began as job creation during the depression. Almost on its heels in 1926-8 came the Barnet Bypass, through recently created Hampstead Garden Suburb. A strong fight by the Suburb residents stopped this becoming a three-lane highway but a proposal to bypass the Suburb by running northward though the fields of Brim Hill was ignored. Causeway cottages at the junction of Church Lane were presumably already demolished when in 1966 a three lane high way was proposed as a relief road for the North Circular Road along Fortis Green and East End Road. The scheme was finally shelved in 1971 after a lot of wrangling. It was in the 1960's that East Finchley lost its original centre in a slum clearance scheme, resulting in the high rise blocks. The magnificent church on the High Road burned down around then and that site was developed as the parade of shops and flats housing the Post Office. I hope to return to this series in the Spring to look more closely at the late 1800's. Also, if there is enough interest, to feature houses typical of their period and link them to the history of the period. If you feel your house would be suitable, please contact me through The Archer or e-mail me on TonyLondon@lineone.net. |
