Avenue House

The house was built in 1859 by the Rev. Edward Cooper, a relative of the Allen family, Lords of the manor of Finchley, who had held the land since the 1730s. It takes its name from The Avenue running behind it, once the route between Bibbesworth manor and the church of St Mary-at-Finchley. In 1874 it was bought by Henry Charles Stephens — "Inky" — the ink manufacturer and philanthropist, who enlarged and improved house and grounds, bought the adjoining ten-acre Temple Croft Field, and had the gardens laid out to designs by the well-known landscape gardener Robert Marnock (1800–1889). Stephens added a collection of rare trees that still forms the basis of today's arboretum.

On his death in 1918 Stephens left the estate to Finchley Urban District Council, on the condition that it "shall be open for the use and enjoyment always of the public". Before that promise could be honoured, the estate served between 1919 and 1925 as an RAF military hospital; the grounds finally opened to the public on 3 May 1928. In 1933 the house hosted the presentation of the charter by which the Urban District Council became a borough. After the council's own offices in nearby Hendon Lane were destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War, Avenue House served for many years as a public library and as the offices of Finchley Borough Council. The basement was pressed into use as an air-raid shelter.

In 1989 the east wing was gutted by fire and afterwards restored to its former condition. Since 2002 the house and ten acres have been leased for 125 years to the Avenue House Estate Trust, with the freehold held by The Avenue House Estate charity, whose principal trustee is the London Borough of Barnet. A major restoration, supported by a £2.1 million Heritage Lottery grant towards a £3.1 million scheme, ran from 2015 to late 2017, rejuvenating the pond, replanting the arboretum, enlarging the playground and converting the old stable and garage blocks into a visitor centre, toilets and café.

The gardens and arboretum are open to the public free of charge, as Henry Charles Stephens intended, with a pond, a children's playground, a café in the modernised stable block and a visitor centre housing The Stephens Collection — a small museum of Stephens Ink and family material, also free to enter. By the stables and café you will find the bronze statue of Spike Milligan, long-time local resident and first President of the Finchley Society, seated on a bench and unveiled on 4 September 2014. The Bothy, a late-1870s walled garden built in the shape of a small rectangular castle and one of the earliest non-Roman concrete structures in England, has its walled garden maintained separately by volunteers; it opens every Friday and on the first Sunday of the month, with occasional arts events and play readings in summer.

The house itself is now a meetings and events venue rather than a daily tourist attraction, so access to the interior is limited; the organised public ghost hunts held here are one way to see it after dark, with dates and booking handled by the event companies that run them. If your interest is the history rather than the dark, the Finchley Society and its archive are based at the house, and the grounds reward a slow daylight wander among Stephens' rare trees.