Finchley Manor and Squires Lane (Finchley N3)

The manor house, now the Sternberg Centre, was built in 1723 by the Allens. Bibbesworth, Finchley's original manor house (c1253), was destroyed by fire in the 15th and 16th centuries. Of the original building only a ditch, possibly a moat, remains.

• the house was used as a boys school between 1819 and 1857
• Courts Leet and Baron were held here from the time of Richard Rook (1360s) until the last Lord of the Manor, Edward Cooper Arden, in 1936
• between 1863 and 1882 it was the residence of George Plucknett, a magistrate, who used the main hall to hear cases
• between 1921 and 1981 the order of St Marie Auxiliatrice used the building as a girls school
• until the beginning of the 20th century a curious oblong pond with a central island existed opposite the manor and was known locally as the 'moat', however these are more likely to have been fish ponds or openings created by the extraction of clay for making bricks for the building of the 16th century building
• the family of William Hastings, Lord Hastings (d.1483), held the manor until 1527

The Avenue, which runs behind Avenue House, is derived from a line of trees planted by Elizabeth King whose husband was lord of the manor in the 1600s. Built in 1859 the house was bought in 1874 by the ink manufacturer Henry Charles Stephens and left to the people of Finchley in 1918, later becoming a park.

East of the manor house was Manor Farm where details of the calf and the cart shown in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting Found were painted. Middlesex Cricket Club now occupies the site.