Description of The Building
Like the other stations that Holden designed for London Underground in the 1930s, East Finchley station was at the forefront of British architectural design and took inspiration from European architecture (particularly Dutch) that Holden had seen on trips to the continent during that decade. The track here runs roughly north-west to south-east. The imposing station building, built on rising ground adjacent to the railway bridge over High Road (A1000), has two entrances. The main entrance is at the south-east end of the station. It is on the north-east side of the tracks facing High Road. There is also a smaller, secondary entrance at the north-west end, on the south-west side of the tracks, at the end of an access road called "The Causeway". It is possible to walk through the station from one exit to the other without going onto the platforms.
A strong feature of the station is the semi-circular glazed stairways leading to the enclosed bridge over the tracks occupied by staff offices. These, combined with the station's block-like mass and the narrow deck-like platform buildings, lend the building the atmosphere of a ship. Prominent from the platforms and dominating the main entrance elevation, almost like a ship's figurehead, is a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) statue by Eric Aumonier of a kneeling archer captured as if having just released an arrow along the railway line towards central London. (The Archer, a local community newspaper, is named after this landmark). The archer is intended to commemorate Finchley's ancient association with hunting in the nearby Royal Forest of Enfield. There is also a pun, in that it faces towards Archway.
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