Site

This gate is at an entrance to Big Wood (and, yes, HGS does also has a Little Wood, but oddly neither is shown green on Google Maps).

The Big Wood information board and a leaflet provide the following information:

At the time of the Norman conquest the wood was likely to have been part of a much larger woodland area, gradually reduced as new fields were made.

In the middle ages the site was part of an estate called Bibwell in the manor of Finchley, which the Bishop of London had acquired about 704AD from the Bishop of Hereford as part of the Fulham estates and the church continued to own it until 1933.

The western edge of the wood formed part of the boundary between Bibwell and the Wyldes estate in the manor of Hendon. It became known as Wyldes and in the 15^th century when Henry VI founded Eton College he gave Wyldes to the college, which continued to hold it until the beginning of the 20^th century. They sold much of it to the early Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust for building the original part of the Suburb. Then in 1911 the HGS Trust took a 999 year lease on the area to extend the original suburb.

In 1855 the administration of the Bishop’s estates, including Big Wood, was taken over by the ecclesiastical commissioners. In 1933 The freehold of Big Wood was taken over from the ecclesiastical commissioners by Finchley District Council and remains with the local authority – Barnet.