St Etheldreda was born near Newmarket in Suffolk about the year 630 and was the daughter of the Christian king of East Anglia.

Over the years, the dedication was corrupted to St Audrey's and wills from the time of the Protestant Reformation refer to the Church by both names.

[2] In 1650 the Commonwealth Commissioners recommended that Totteridge Church should be detached from Hatfield and made a separate parish but it required the lapse of nearly two and half centuries and the intervention of an unhappy feud, in which the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury (as patron), the Bishop of Rochester and the Rector of Hatfield faced the uncompromising parishioners of Totteridge (in angry support of a succession of bewildered curates) to give effect to that recommendation.

So, in 1892, by Order in Council, Totteridge became a separate parish with a vicar appointed to care for the souls of the 785 inhabitants.

[2] The lychgate to the churchyard dates from 1930; it was designed by Sir Charles Nicholson and erected in memory of Lady Barrett of Totteridge Park.