At the southern edge of Finchley stands a bronze figure who has watched over Barnet's busiest junction for nearly a century. To passing motorists, she is "The Naked Lady"; officially, she is La Délivrance, Finchley's First World War memorial and one of the most unusual public monuments in North London.
A French Victory, A British Memorial
La Délivrance was created in 1914 by the French sculptor Émile Oscar Guillaume. Standing 4.9 metres high, the statue depicts a nude female figure poised on tiptoe atop a bronze hemisphere, sword raised triumphantly toward the sky. Guillaume originally titled the work La Victoire, crafting it to celebrate the First Battle of the Marne; the engagement of August 1914 that halted the German advance on Paris.
The sculpture came to Finchley through the patronage of Lord Rothermere, newspaper proprietor Harold Sidney Harmsworth. At the 1920 Paris Salon, where the piece won the Hors Concours Medal, Rothermere purchased the bronze with a specific purpose in mind. He intended to present it to the Urban District of Finchley as their official war memorial, commemorating local men who had died in the Great War.
The Battle of the Junction
The statue's placement sparked what remains one of the more peculiar episodes in Barnet's municipal history. Finchley Council had originally intended to install the memorial at the entrance to Victoria Park. Lord Rothermere, however, had other ideas. He insisted the statue be positioned at the newly developing junction where the Great North Road met the North Circular Road; a location that would become known as Henly's Corner. His reason was characteristically direct: he wanted to see the statue when driving to visit his mother in Totteridge.
Council plans were overridden. On 20 October 1927, former Prime Minister David Lloyd George unveiled La Délivrance before a crowd of approximately 8,000 people. The Barnet Bypass, which would fully establish the junction, opened the following year in 1928. The statue had arrived before the traffic.
Local Legend and Nicknames
The memorial's nudity attracted immediate comment. While officially titled La Délivrance, local residents quickly bestowed less formal names. "The Naked Lady" became the most widely used, though "Dirty Gertie", "The Wicked Woman", and "Gangrene Gertie" (the latter referring to corrosion that appeared before a 1938 restoration) also entered local parlance. The unofficial names have proved more durable than the official one; a 1983 entry on the National Heritage List for England recorded the statue under the designation "Statue of the Naked Lady", with La Délivrance listed as an alternative name.
The statue was Grade II listed in April 1983 and upgraded to Grade II* in February 2016, recognising its artistic significance and its unusual status as a British war memorial created by a French artist to commemorate a French victory.
A Fixture at the Junction
Henly's Corner has evolved into one of London's most congested junctions, with approximately 94,000 vehicles traversing it daily. Through decades of road widening, traffic light installations, and junction improvements, La Délivrance has remained. There is no record of the statue causing literal traffic disruption; the suggestion that it "stopped traffic" appears to be metaphorical, referencing its prominent position rather than any documented incidents of driver distraction.
The statue still stands at its original location, a bronze sentinel overlooking the constant flow of vehicles. An information panel installed by the Finchley Society provides context for those who pause to look. For nearly a century, La Délivrance has served as both war memorial and local landmark; a French celebration of survival, reframed as British remembrance, positioned at a Barnet junction through the determination of a newspaper lord who wanted a view for his mother.
