In the 1880’s Express Dairies ran College Farm as a Dairy farm, providing part of London’s milk supply.By the 1900s the company believed that the farm was not viable as a real, working farm; it was adapted to become a visitor attraction, open to the public, with tea rooms and an exhibition of objects related to the dairy industry. In 1973 Express Dairies left the site, and the dairy museum was broken up.
Towards the end of the 1960’s the Express Dairy Company was taken over by Grand Metropolitan Hotels. After Planning permission for 101 houses to be built on the farm had been refused, in 1974 the farm was sold to the Department of the Environment (then in charge of Transport). They acquired it in order to offer it to the Borough of Barnet, in exchange for public open space to be taken from the Borough, should the Henlys Corner flyover and proposed road-improvement scheme proceed.
Chris Ower remembers College Farm vividly as a school child, having been taken there on trips from Islington. He would pass College Farm on his way to work and he was concerned that, after the Express Dairy left, the farm was becoming run down. There was a crop of grass growing on the fields and he contacted the owners to buy the crop; they were glad for the field to be cleared. Chris then asked if he would be able to have the crop the following year, as he planned to harrow and fertilise the land during the winter. At this point he was told that they wanted to lease the whole farm and have a tenant living on the property. So in 1976, Chris took a short lease on College Farm, with the object of bringing this historic farm back to life. He and his wife, Jane, moved into the only room that was habitable on the farm; they lived in this one room for six months whilst renovating the farm house.
They put all their own money into the renovations and the building of horse-stabling, firstly where the museum had once been and then where the cows had been stalled and milked. He rented the stables to local horse owners to bring in some money; he was still doing his other jobs until 1978. The farm was nearly derelict when he moved in but he managed to find the time to carry out some renovation. Gradually a riding school developed out of the livery stables; soon there were thirty horses kept at College Farm.