Stephens House & Gardens, formerly known as Avenue House Grounds *

Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

Avenue House is on a site formerly known as Temple Croft Field after the Knights Templar who had been granted 40 acres here in 1243. The land passed through various hands, including the Knights Hospitallers who held it from 1312 to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538/39. In 1732 it became part of Thomas Allen's Bibbesworth Estate, the Manor House of which is now The Sternberg Centre (q.v.). Temple Croft Field then passed to relatives of the Allen family, the Coopers; the Italianate villa which became known as Avenue House was built in 1859 for the Reverend Edward Philip Cooper.

In 1874 the house and part of the adjoining Little Church Field was acquired by Henry Charles ('Inky') Stephens, son of the inventor of blue-black ink, Dr Henry Stephens who had lived in Finchley since 1844. Stephens enlarged and improved the house and grounds, seeking advice in 1878 from William Robinson, Editor of 'The Garden', who recommended the landscape gardener Robert Marnock (1800-1889). Marnock's layout included lawns, ponds, mounds and rockwork, a network of informal paths and steps, a paddock and a square-shaped walled kitchen garden. This latter was known as The Bothy and incorporated the park keeper's house; it was built in 1882, a large walled enclosure with rendered battlemented and buttressed walls conceived as a romantic eye-catcher on the easterly summit of the garden. The planting in the grounds included a fine collection of trees. To the buildings Stephens added a water tower with adjacent laundry, a lodge, coach house and stable block in the French gothic style, probably designed by Rodgers Field, as well as a gabled east wing to the house.

When Stephens left Avenue House in 1918, he bequeathed the house and 10 acres of grounds to the people on condition that it should be 'open for the use and enjoyment always of the public under reasonable regulations'. As a result, the grounds were open on Thursday afternoons. However, after Stephens' death in 1918 the house, which was already in use as a hospital, was requisitioned by the Air Ministry who occupied the property until 1925 as the Central Hospital of the Royal Air Force, although Finchley Urban District Council had sought to take possession in 1922 in order to sell it for development purposes. A lengthy legal battle ensued between Finchley UDC, Stephens' executors and local people, which finally resulted in the gardens being formally opened to the public as Avenue House Grounds on 3 May 1928. W J Bean, Curator of Kew Gardens (q.v.) advised on maintenance; in 1929 the paddock to the east of the site was developed as the Sports Ground and by 1936 land north of the Avenue and on the eastern part of the Sports Ground was developed for housing. Avenue House was used as a public library from 1933-1939 when it was used for Air Raid Precautions Headquarters; after World War ll for a time it became Finchley's municipal offices due to damage to the Town Hall, and then a museum. During the war the C19th boundary railings as well as dwarf railings in the grounds were removed.

The present gardens are on this hilly site, now reduced in size, but the planting and most of the path layout has remained unaltered since the 1870s/1880s layout. The OS map of 1894 shows glasshouses and two ponds on the site, only one of which survives as the fishpond with a rock-work island, enclosed by low railings. The house stands on the south-west corner of the site with a stone terrace on it southern side beyond which is an open lawn sloping down to the east. To the north-west the land rises to a mound, densely planted with mature trees including a stand of tall Scots pines, ilex, holly, fir, yew and oak. This, the largest mound in the gardens, is known as Monkey Hill possibly referring to a monkey puzzle trees that once grew here. To the north-east is another, higher lawn terrace reached by steps and enclosed by dense planting, including species selected for their vividly contrasting foliage colours. This lawn is surrounded by fine mature specimen trees, including Caucasian wingnut and a large Hungarian oak. To the rear is a children's playground erected in the late C20th on the site of an earlier, possibly 1930s, playground. Apart from the main entrance by the house, the grounds have entrances at each corner.

Under local authority management in the 1990s the gardens have been replanted with over 100 species of woody plants. The house suffered a major fire in 1989, but was restored by Barnet Council and reopened in 1993; it continues to be a venue for functions, conferences and other events. In 1995 the Avenue House Action Group was formed to safeguard the property and eventually an independent charity, Avenue House Estate Trust, was formed and in November 2002 and took over management of the site on a lease of 125 years. The Trust is currenlty restoring the grounds, where possible to the original design, and is improving the facilities of house and gardens as Henry Stephens wished in his bequest to the people.

The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.