Its heart is the ancient district around St Mary's Church, where the imposing brick tower of Pardes House Primary School (formerly Christ's College Finchley) is a landmark.

There is a public library in Regents Park Road in Gateway House, a new building facing the junction with Hendon Lane.

Further north, Victoria Park is the home of the Finchley Carnival, a large fun fair held every year in July, dating back to 1905.

In December 2016 the museum closed temporarily in order to move to a new location within the estate's new Visitor Centre established within the former stables block.

The house and ten acres of fine landscaped gardens and parkland open to the public are now run by a local charitable trust.

In February 2014 the estate was relaunched and rebranded, in conjunction with a Heritage Lottery Fund bid, as Stephens House and Gardens.

The building has been altered many times since its foundation and the oldest parts, the north wall and the tower (which seems to have had a steeple during the 16th and 17th centuries), date from the reign of Henry VII.

The rector of Finchley, Thomas Reader White, refused to renew the lease on the house and the inn did not move to its present location as the New Queen’s Head, in East End Road until the 1860s.

Finchley's old rectory, first mentioned in 1476, also stood near the church and in 1810 was chiefly built of timber, with roofs of slate and tiles.

Ralph Worsley, rector 1794–1848, went to live at Moss Hall in Nether Street, which his wife had inherited, whereupon the rectory house was leased.

One of the first actions of Thomas Reader White, rector 1848–77, was to replace the old house with one to the north, built in stock brick to the design of Anthony Salvin.

In June 2019, after a largely local campaign, the restaurant closed and was turned into a pub again, retaking the name The King Of Prussia.

It was commemorated with a blue plaque put up at the Queen’s Head by the Finchley Society, but the pub closed in 2012 and is now apartments.

Ford Madox Brown lived at 1 Grove Villas on Regents Park Road between 1853 and 1855 where he painted a number of agricultural scenes and, most notably, " The Last of England".

This was demolished in 1962 and replaced with an office block, and on the ground floor a pub called The Minstrel, which became The Central and then a wine bar and restaurant, now (2019) closed.

The area was still a village until news of a possible tramline between Golders Green and North Finchley encouraged suburban development.

From the railway station north as far as Long Lane parades of shops were built from 1893 onwards, and were well established when in 1909 the trams were introduced.

Gateway House was demolished at the end of 2015 and the site has been redeveloped, now containing a new public library and a small supermarket, with five floors of apartments above.

Roughly halfway along its route at a crossroads is Squires Lane which runs from the manor house to the High Road, the traditional division between East Finchley and Church End.

Sir Charles Redvers Westlake, who was engineer at the works between 1935 and 1948, was later responsible for the building of the Owen Falls dam, Uganda.

Essentially an access road to properties and land, the most important of which were Moss Hall (see North Finchley) and Brent Lodge.

West Finchley station on the LNER railway opened on 1 March 1933 and became part of the London Underground upon electrification on 14 April 1940.

Nether Street has one claim to fame as the childhood home of the actor Terry-Thomas who received some of his early education at Fernbank School in Hendon Lane.

West of Nether Street is Dollis Brook, a tributary of the River Brent which forms the western boundary between the ancient parishes of Finchley and Hendon.

The viaduct carrying the Mill Hill East branch of the Northern line at the bottom of Dollis Road was built between 1863 and 1867 to designs by Sir John Fowler.