This is a temporary entry for this page, pending a more detailed report. I spent years walking past the old Finchley Manor House on East End Road and never really noticing it. In fact I grew up in the area and visited nearby Avenue House Park many times between 1963 and 1975 without ever taking any interest in the large house close by.

 I’ve slowly become aware in recent years of the Manor House being a central presence in Finchley’s past. I don’t feel inclined to recycle the story of the building and its various owners – any book on the local history of the area will fill you in.

The moat at Finchley Manor

What concerns me more is the notion of the house being the hub of the river-systems in the area. This is not accidental: the manor house would almost certainly have been built on a prominent base of dry land and within the space forming a watershed to boot! Further, it would have served the owners to feel in control of the local water supply and to have access to it at a point where the water was as yet uncontaminated by cattle wastes etc.

Indeed, several streams run down from the site of the house as will be covered in other pages on this site. The source of the Strawberry Vale Brook runs east from the house alongside Squire’s Lane. Several other brooks flow south to feed the Mutton Brook and, I suspect, another crosses diagonally over Regents Park Road, towards the old quaggy fields in the far southwest of the parish.

I recently managed to gain access to the site to study the near mythic (to laymen like myself) moat hidden behind the house.

Deep inside the manor yet within
yards of heavy traffic...

...lies one of the great
treasures of Barnet Borough

I lapped up all the info I could and then promptly forgot it

The Manor house is currently serving as a Jewish School and for obvious reasons security at the site was tight. The staff were slightly wary at the prospect of granting me access but following a check on this website they let me in. It was a nerve-wracking process arguing my point but it was well worth it. The gentleman showing me around talked at great detail about the moat and its past but I promptly forgot everything he told me. Anyway, I feel intimidated by this local history hotspot and unable to further the already substantial researches carried out here.

I took a final glimpse before I left

I was taken to an area of woodland behind the grass upon which the kids played rounders and introduced to what, in effect, is the epicentre of the old parish of Finchley’s water system. I was pleased to spot the probable course of the stream I’d long suspected issued from the moat towards Beaufort Drive, down in the Mutton Valley. It was an ivy-entwined chute running though a base of dense foliage and was very difficult to photograph (so I didn’t).The place is inexpressibly peaceful and at variance with the tumult of the world beyond, the North Circular Road being particularly relevant here. The moat was dry and given over to dense grasses and emergent secondary woodland.I count myself amongst the blessed to have been shown this place and this page is a tentative sketch drawn up to tell you so. I hope to write a fuller account at some time in the future.