Removals in East Finchley N2

House removals East Finchley: the old village, the terraces and the Suburb

Before the railway, East Finchley was known as East End. The Victoria County History account of Finchley records East End and Parkgate by the 1370s as a scattered hamlet where East End Road met the Great North Road. Droving and the pig trade kept it growing. The Hogmarket became Market Place, Prospect Place was built in 1825 to join it to East End Road, and cottages spread along Red Lion Hill, Oak Lane and what is now King Street. The Great Northern Railway opened a station at East Finchley in 1867, and the line became part of the Northern line when it was electrified to East Finchley in 1939.

That history explains why a removal in N2 is three different jobs depending on the address. Each one is set out below. Before we quote, we want to know which of the three you are moving out of, and which you are moving into.

Flats where the old village stood

Very little of the old East End survives. The county history records eighteen blocks of 318 flats planned near the Red Lion in 1938, and in 1954 the cottages packed between the Great North Road and the railway around the George inn were cleared for eleven-storey blocks. A council estate of 274 flats followed at Vale Farm, near the Great North Road, in 1975. By the time the county history was written, around 1980, it could say that modern flats had wiped out even the street pattern of the old village. So many of the homes near the station and the High Road are flats, in blocks built anywhere from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Moving out of a block like that is about the lift and the ground floor rather than the street. We ask whether there is a lift, how big it is and whether it can be booked or locked off for the morning, how far the main door is from where a van can stop, and whether the estate has its own car park or service road. On council and housing association land, the managing office often sets its own rules for vans, so we ask you to check with them as soon as your date is fixed. The questions worth putting to the building manager are listed in our checklist for moving in or out of a London block.

Terraces built after 1878

East End grew fastest after the Ecclesiastical Commissioners started granting 99-year building leases in 1878. In 1881 hundreds of cottages were described as new building, and in 1899 another seventeen acres off Fortis Green Road were built over. The large villas along East End Road started to go at the same time: Sedgemere was sold in 1901 and had become Sedgemere Avenue by 1920. Much of the terraced housing between the High Road and the cemeteries that close off the eastern edge of the parish comes from those decades.

Terraced houses like these have their own pinch points. The front door usually opens off a short front garden, the hall is narrow, and the stair often has a tight turn at the top. A sofa that went in through the front window years ago may not come back out of the door, so we ask for the width of the hall and the stair and plan which pieces need their feet or doors taken off. If the house has gained a loft room or a rear extension, that adds carrying but rarely changes the van. A terrace in N2 can also be two flats rather than one house: the county history notes that by about 1905 many East End houses were already divided into lodgings. If your front door opens onto a shared hall, tell us, and we will plan for the neighbours' access as well as yours.

Houses south of East End Road

South of East End Road the homes get bigger. The Bishops Avenue was laid out around 1887 and building began in 1894; by 1906 it had twelve houses in large grounds, and the road itself was still unmade in 1935. West and north of it, the land was leased to the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust and the Co-Partnership Tenants in 1909 and 1911. Houses in Falloden Way and the roads off it went up before the First World War, but most building there came in the 1920s and 1930s. The county history describes the whole area south-east of the North Circular as an extension of the Suburb, closer in character to it than to the rest of Finchley.

For a removal, these houses mean volume rather than tight stairs. A detached family house with a garage, a loft and a garden room can fill two Luton vans or need a second trip, and the drive and the gate decide how close the vans can get. A drive may be gated, on a slope, shared with the house next door, or too short for a van once a car is parked on it. Before the day, we ask for a photograph of the frontage taken from the road, and we check whether a van can turn on the drive or has to stay on the street. A big house with children is also a long move to plan. Our guide to moving house with children sets out what to keep back from the van for the first night.

The whole of Greater London sits inside the ULEZ, and East Finchley is well outside the Congestion Charge zone, so neither adds anything to a local move. Both are explained in our note on ULEZ and Congestion Charge costs for removal vans if your move ends in central London.

Call 020 3983 5199 with the street name and the type of home, and we will price the move from that.

Removals East Finchley: guide prices

Each band below is a starting point. The price we confirm is fixed once we know the stairs, the drive and the parking.

Guide figures only. A flat high in a block with one small lift, or a large Suburb house with a full loft and garage, usually sits towards the top of its band.

Areas around N2 with their own pages

East Finchley borders these areas, each covered on its own page: