Woodside Park and Woodside (Finchley N12)

Woodside House is possibly a medieval property, but certainly known by 1699. By the 1800s it was called Woodside farm. In April 1872 the station opened and in June, 45 acres of the Woodside estate were sold as 'Torrington Park', part of the Woodside Estate. 

In 1877 a man called Henry Holden inherited the land, and it was he who developed what we know as Woodside Park. Holden built an assembly room, Woodside Hall, in 1885, which was converted in to Woodside Park Synagogue in 1950. Holden Road is named after Henry Holden. Spike Milligan, the comedian, lived in Holden Road, as did the young Emma Bunton.

On the other side of the railway line, and on the western side of the Dollis brook and north of Folly Brook, the Woodside Park Garden Suburb was built between 1929 and 1939. The original builder was FJC Ingram. By 1936 The Leyland Construction Company were also selling houses south of the Folly brook. Both these builders knew that there were plans to electrify the railway and connect it to the underground as part of the Northern line.

The brookside walk was established by Finchley Council during the 1920s, with the last sections purchased in 1931. North of Folly Brook, Woodside Park Club (1934) was established to serve residents of the Garden Estate.