The designation as the study area
At about 175.5 hectares, the conservation area that Barnet lists as CA12 is large enough to take in houses, hay pasture and farm buildings, so its mapped boundary serves as the study area throughout this page. The council's 2008 appraisal traces the settlement to agricultural beginnings, and that origin runs through the records that follow, from barns and countryside designations to land restrictions dating from 1959.
Neighbouring Whetstone has a guide of its own, and the Barnet guide covers the borough. Each section below links to the record behind it, and none of the figures describes a particular house: they frame the questions worth asking before an inspection.
What the records hold for the conservation area
Every statement below links to the public record it comes from; sources were re-checked on .
CA12 and the 2008 appraisal statement
The planning.data.gov.uk entry gives Barnet reference CA12 and a mapped area of about 175.5 hectares, and dates the designation to 20 December 1968.
Barnet's conservation area character appraisal statement, adopted in May 2008, places the area in the northern part of the borough along a gravel ridge of higher ground that runs from west to east.
Agriculture is the settlement's origin, the appraisal explains, and it stayed important to the local economy into the early 20th century; the area still has some of London's richest surviving hay pastures and three 18th-century barns.
Part of the western end and Totteridge Green are also designated as Countryside Conservation Areas, according to the same statement, and suburban development forms the eastern boundary.
Barns and outbuildings fall outside a house inspection unless they are named, so where the appraisal points to farm buildings, the brief lists every structure on the plot that is to be seen.
List entries
The NHLE dataset returns 36 list entries within the boundary, all at Grade II, and neither a scheduled monument nor a registered park and garden lies inside it.
A Grade II record in the national heritage list can describe a barn, a wall, a group of cottages or a house, so the entry for a plot is read in full before consent for work is discussed.
Listed or not, a building inside the designated boundary falls under conservation-area planning controls.
Article 4 directions
The 2008 appraisal states that, shortly after designation, the council decided to introduce an Article 4 direction for most of the conservation area.
On planning.data.gov.uk, three records titled Article 4 for Totteridge CA, Area 1, Area 2 and Area 3, share a start date of 5 July 1972 and cover about 2.2%, 3.5% and 10.5% of the boundary.
Two more, titled Article 4(2) for Totteridge CA, Area 1 and Area 2, start on 6 May 2008 and cover about 0.8% and 0.1%.
Those mapped shares are far smaller than the appraisal's word "most", so neither the council's statement nor the polygons are taken as final, and the directions that apply to an address are confirmed with Barnet.
Separate records named Agricultural Land Restriction Area 1 and Agricultural Land Restriction Area 2, both with a start date of 17 April 1959, cover about 28.4% and 31.1% of the conservation area; the dataset gives their titles but no further detail.
A direction on small houses in multiple occupation spans the whole boundary as a use-class control, unrelated to heritage.
Ground along the ridge
On the BGS's 1:50,000 bedrock geology, four of the five sample points fall on the Claygate Member, a unit of clay, silt and sand, and the fifth on London Clay Formation.
One point carries Stanmore Gravel Formation sand and gravel in the superficial layer, while no superficial deposit is recorded at the other four.
Clay-bearing beds can shrink and swell with the weather and with tree roots, while sand and gravel let water through readily yet can be eroded by a leaking drain, so the BGS mapping points to which risks to look for first.
Being regional, the geology viewer is background, not evidence for one plot.
Flood zones
River flood zones barely register on the Flood Map for Planning: Flood Zone 2 and Flood Zone 3 each cover under 0.1% of the conservation area.
Planning flood zones leave out defences and are not property-level, so surface water is checked separately with the government's long-term flood risk service, particularly for a basement or a garden that falls towards the house.
Housing in one statistical area
The housing figures rest on a single LSOA, E01000279, used because at least a quarter of its area lies inside the boundary; the VOA's council tax stock figures for 2025 count about 560 dwellings there, rounded to the nearest 10.
Of the dwellings counted, detached houses make up 67.9% in the VOA's property-type figures, semi-detached houses 12.5%, bungalows 8.9%, flats and maisonettes 5.4% and terraced houses 3.6%.
On the VOA build-period table, 35.7% date from 1945-1972, 23.2% from 1919-1939, 12.5% from before 1900, 8.9% each from 1973-1999 and from 2000 onwards, and 5.4% from 1900-1918, with 3.6% unknown.
Band H alone holds 44.6% of the stock in the VOA band counts, band G 41.1% and band F 8.9%, giving 94.6% in bands F to H.
One LSOA can only approximate 175.5 hectares, so these VOA figures belong to that statistical area rather than to the designation.
Guides already written for this conservation area
Use the first list for a guide to one kind of instruction within the conservation area, and the second for the practice-wide page that covers the same service anywhere.
Guides for the surrounding area
Borough-wide context sits in the Barnet guide, while the guides for Whetstone, North Finchley and Mill Hill cover nearby study areas, and a separate Woodside Park guide covers a circle around its Underground station.
Questions about the conservation area
When did the conservation area come into being?
Its designation date is 20 December 1968 on the planning.data.gov.uk record, which also gives Barnet reference CA12 and an area of about 175.5 hectares. The council's character appraisal statement for the area was adopted in May 2008.
Are any buildings here listed above Grade II?
None. The NHLE dataset returns 36 list entries inside the boundary, every one at Grade II. A single entry can cover a barn, a wall or a group, so the record for the specific property settles whether consent is needed for works.
Do Article 4 rules apply to every house in the conservation area?
Not necessarily. The 2008 appraisal says a direction was introduced for most of the area, yet the conservation-area directions mapped on planning.data.gov.uk cover much smaller shares, the largest about 10.5%. Barnet can confirm which rights are withdrawn for a particular address.
What ground does the ridge sit on?
Geological mapping at 1:50,000 by the BGS places the Claygate Member at four of five sample points and London Clay at the fifth, with one point under Stanmore Gravel Formation deposits. Clay beds can move with moisture and trees, so cracking is assessed with that in mind.
Is there river flood risk inside the boundary?
Hardly any: the EA's planning map shows each of Flood Zones 2 and 3 covering under 0.1% of the boundary. Surface water is a separate layer, so the long-term flood risk service is still worth checking for a particular address.
Should outbuildings and barns be named in the instruction?
Yes. List every structure to be inspected, such as a garage, stable, barn or garden building, and say whether any is listed or used as living space. The 2008 appraisal records three 18th-century barns in the area, so a plot may include an older farm building with repair needs of its own.
How we work on an instruction
Hampstead Chartered Surveyors is a RICS-regulated firm (RICS Regulated Firm No. 923064) working from its registered Hampstead NW3 office. The firm does not claim premises, staff or completed instructions in an individual locality, and it does not treat a neighbourhood name as evidence about a particular building.
An instruction starts with the full address, the decision the client faces and the documents already available, such as leases, drawings, notices or earlier reports. The scope, fee and inspection date are confirmed in writing only after that review, and access to roofs, lofts, basements or common parts is agreed before the visit.
Reports include RICS Level 2 and Level 3 home surveys, building and defect investigations, party wall appointments, reinstatement cost assessments, contract administration and schedules of condition. Each report records what was inspected, what could not be seen and what further investigation the evidence supports.
Public datasets such as the conservation-area register, the National Heritage List for England, British Geological Survey mapping, the Environment Agency flood map and Valuation Office Agency housing statistics describe areas rather than individual properties. They frame questions before an inspection; they never replace it.
Reviewed by Savas Bulduk BSc (Hons) MRICS, Director & Chartered Building Surveyor at Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy. Last reviewed: . Our people · RICS firm record