upright=1.2, College Farm driveway College Farm is the only farm site in

Finchley Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. north of Charing Cross, nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, London, Whetstone, Mill Hill and Hendon. It is ...

, in the

London Borough of Barnet The London Borough of Barnet () is a suburban London boroughs, London borough in north London, England. Forming part of Outer London, the borough was formed in 1965 from parts of the ceremonial counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. It is the ...

. It currently trades as an equestrian and pet store. It is located in Regents Park Road, close to

Henlys Corner Henlys Corner is a brief combining junction of the A1 and the North Circular Road in North London, in the middle of which is the crossroads of the A598. Connecting roads and public transport The intersecting local road is Finchley Road/Regent ...

on the

North Circular Road The North Circular Road (officially the A406 and sometimes known as simply the North Circular) is a ring road around Central London. It runs from Chiswick in the west to North Woolwich in the east via suburban north London, connecting var ...

. It has two residential roads running alongside it; Allandale Avenue and Fitzalan Road.

History

In 1868 George Barham, founder of Express Dairies, leased Sheephouse Farm, a property of about . In 1882/83 he had it rebuilt by Fredrick Chancellor as a

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided in ...

dairy farm, renaming it College Farm after the nearby Christ's College. In 1898 College Farm was the scene of the "Finchley Murder", when the head cowman Thomas Webb was shot dead. The case was investigated by Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

, but Thomas's killer was never identified. By the 1900s the company believed that the farm was not viable as a real farm, so it was decided to adapt it to become a visitor attraction in 1909, buying out the lease on the property of the farm buildings, and retaining a few of the adjacent fields from the original estate. By the 1930s the residue of the farm was surrounded by houses, and was open to the public, with tea rooms and an exhibition of objects related to the dairy industry. In the 1950s and 1960s cows were grazed and milked on the site by Express Dairies. In 1973 Express Dairies left the site, and the dairy museum was broken up. In 1974 the Department of the Environment purchased the estate with the intention of giving it to the

in exchange for open land at Henlys Corner intended for a flyover, which was never built. The farm was leased by Chris and Jane Ower, who ran it as a popular local attraction from 1980 until February 2001, when the site had to be closed because of restrictions caused by the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Chris Ower, with the support of some local residents and friends of the farm, set up the College Farm Trust in 2004 with the intention of re-establishing the farm as a visitor centre. The Trust now owns the whole site and is working to raise the funds to reopen to the public. However, the trust was removed from the

Charity Commission The Charity Commission for England and Wales is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government that regulates registered charities in England and Wales and maintains the Central Register of Charities. Its counterparts in Scotland and ...

Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation Site most often refers to: * Archaeological site * Campsite, a place used for overnight stay in an outdoor area * Construction site * Location, a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere * Website, a set of related web pages, typical ...

. It also has a silo which is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

History

See also

References

Further reading