New tenants to take on famous High Barnet hostelry, The Red Lion

Stonehouse Pizza and Carvery has ceased trading at the Red Lion in High Barnet. A drinks service will continue until the pub’s owners Mitchells and Butler complete the hand over to new tenants.

Kitchen and serving staff have been offered alternative posts at the Toby Carvery in Borehamwood, another restaurant in the Mitchells and Butler chain,

Rumours about the future of The Red Lion, one of the coaching inns for which High Barnet was once famous, began circulating when it ceased serving food.

Customers are being assured the pub remains open for drinks and that the Red Lion will continue trading under new owners.

There are suggestions the new tenants might re-think how to take advantage of the available space in what is High Barnet’s largest public house – a prominent three-storey building which includes a ballroom on the second floor long since closed off to the public.

For a time in the 1980s it became the Dandy Lion, but the famous red lion sign was later restored in all its glory to a building which was rebuilt in 1930 by the Meux Brewery to the designs of their in-house architect William Foster and which has grade II status as a listed building.

The Red Lion’s position at the top of Barnet Hill meant that in the past it was an important stopping point on the Great North Road. By 1817, 150 coaches a day were passing through High Barnet.

Later “Red Lion, Barnet” became a frequent destination for trams and later buses, but “Barnet Hospital” has taken its place after a bus terminus was established in Wellhouse Lane.

The Red Lion’s many claims to fame include two visits by the celebrated diarist Samuel Pepys.

After visiting Barnet Physic Well in July 1664, Pepys had lunch at the Red Lion and after having a further drink at the well, rode home to London.

He returned to the well in May 1667 and went again to the Red Lion, where he famously noted in his diary that he ate “some of the best cheesecakes I ever did eat in my life”.