Avenue House Grounds is a ten-acre (four hectares) Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation on East End Road in

Church End, Finchley Church End (often known as "Finchley Central") is a locality within Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Aside from its church it centres on Finchley Central Underground station. Church End is an old village, now a subu ...

in the

London Borough of Barnet The London Borough of Barnet () is a suburban London borough in North London. The borough was formed in 1965 from parts of the ceremonial counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. It forms part of Outer London and is the largest London borough ...

. The estate is now known as Stephens House and Gardens. Avenue House is a Grade II listed Victorian villa dating from 1859 on a site previously known as Temple Croft Fields, named after the Knights Templar, who were granted 40 acres there in 1243. From 1312 to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, it was owned by the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

. During the Anglian ice age, around 450,000 years ago, ice pushed further south than at any other time in the past two million years. The area was then in a valley called the " Finchley depression", which allowed a tongue of ice to push south to what is now the area north of the

North Circular Road The North Circular Road (officially the A406 and sometimes known as simply the North Circular) is a ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting ...

, near the southern extremity of any

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

glaciation. In 1874, the house and estate was acquired by ink magnate and later local MP Henry Stephens (1841–1918), who lived there with his family. He enlarged the house, added the building of a stable and employed the leading landscape gardener Robert Marnock to design the grounds, which include a walled garden and staff accommodation called The Bothy. Stephens bequeathed the house and grounds to the Finchley Urban District Council, subject to the condition that it was open for the use and enjoyment always of the public under reasonable regulation, in his will when he died in 1918, and is commemorated in a small museum, The Stephens Collection, in Avenue House. The gardens were opened to the public in 1928.Avenue House Grounds, London Gardens Online
/ref> They have been set out as a public park, with lawns, trees including fine old evergreens, and shrubberies. There is also an ornamental pond with a fountain and a children's playground. The Bothy was built in the shape of a castle sometime in the late 1870s. It is one of the earliest, if not the first, non-Roman concrete structures in England. It is a Grade II listed building .The Bothy, Barnet
British Listed Buildings. Accessed October 2012 The Bothy garden is maintained by volunteers and is open to visitors monthly during the summer. The main ecological interest is the birdlife, including great spotted woodpeckers,

greenfinch The greenfinches are small passerine birds in the genus ''Chloris'' in the subfamily Carduelinae within the Fringillidae. The species have a Eurasian distribution except for the European greenfinch, which also occurs in North Africa. These fi ...

es,

great tit The great tit (''Parus major'') is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and east across the Palearctic to the Amur River, south to parts of North Af ...

s and robins.

Frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

s breed in the pond. Over ten years the Finchley Society led by Barbara Warren raised funds - the Spike Milligan Statue Fund - to commission a statue of former local resident

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his ...

cast in bronze by local sculptor John Somerville and erected by the stables block in the grounds of Avenue House. The statue of Spike sitting on a bench was unveiled on 4 September 2014 at a ceremony attended by a number of local dignitaries and showbusiness celebrities including Roy Hudd,

Michael Parkinson Sir Michael Parkinson (born 28 March 1935) is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his television talk show '' Parkinson'' from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007, as well as other talk shows and programmes both in the U ...

Maureen Lipman Dame Maureen Diane Lipman (born 10 May 1946) is an English actress, writer and comedian. She trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and her stage work has included appearances with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespea ...

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including '' Time Bandits'' (1981), '' ...

Kathy Lette Kathryn Marie Lette (born 11 November 1958) is an Australian-British author whose works have been best-sellers. Early life Lette was born on 11 November 1958 in Sydney's southern suburbs. She appeared in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' of 20 Au ...

Denis Norden Denis Mostyn Norden (6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018) was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the ...

and Lynsey de Paul.

See also

References

Further reading