The artsdepot, a local community arts centre including a gallery, a studio and a theatre, was opened on 23 October 2004 in an attempt to revitalise the area, and in order to fill a gap created by the demolition of the Gaumont cinema and what had become an open-air market.

There is also a dominant Edwardian style toward Woodside Park and Nether Street, but with some modern houses—probably built between the 1930s and 1960s—towards Friern Barnet.

There are some mansion-style properties on Friern Barnet Lane, and a development of luxury flats at Tally Ho Corner, above the artsdepot, with views over Mill Hill and Hertfordshire.

There are few local authority estates in the area; the largest one is in Woodside Park where ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton grew up.

The area is served by West Finchley and Woodside Park tube stations, both on the High Barnet branch of the Northern line.

On 26 July 1994 a bomb exploded outside Balfour House, a prominent building on North Finchley High Street and location of the offices of numerous Jewish charities.

[1] Two Palestinians, Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, were subsequently convicted of carrying out the Finchley bombing.

This suggests that Ballards Lane had already become a link in a route from London via Hendon to the Great North Road.

[4] But it was later, with the enclosure of the Common after 1816 and the creation of the Finchley Road turnpike along Ballards Lane in the late 1820s, that beginnings of a suburb were sparked.

Incidentally Lodge Lane was the home of Private John Parr the first British soldier to be killed in World War I, and the actor David Jason.

In 1851, there was a regular 'bus service running from the Torrington to Charing Cross and railway connections had been established with London, first at New Southgate.

It was during the construction of a railway through Finchley from 1864 that a Reverend Henry Stephens opened a mission for the navvies working on the line.

The Finchley Meeting House, the local Quaker place of worship, was built on Alexandra Grove in 1967.

Summers Lane existed from at least the 18th century as a short cut from the main road through to Friern Barnet.

On a site where Summers Lane meets the High Road a gun battery was placed in World War I as a defence against early German air raids.

Ken Aston, late president of the club, was the man who started the system of red and yellow cards use by referees.

A tour de force of art deco, the main pool was heated until World War II.

The pool was the first element in a Finchley complex which was to include a Town Hall for which plans were drawn up in 1936 but never realised.

[6] In 1938 the War Office built a drill hall at the bottom of the hill for the 61 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regt RA (TA), better known locally as the T.A.

Later, in 1843, he returned and wrote portions of Martin Chuzzlewit, conceiving the character of 'Sairey' Gamp whilst out walking in Finchley.

Dame Evelyn Turner (1910–1993), on whose life the television series Tenko was partially based, went to school here.