Author: Nick Jones

A socially distanced two-minute silence was observed at the war memorial at Barnet parish church to mark Remembrance Sunday.

Continue reading Barnet’s fallen comrades remembered despite coronavirus pandemic

Without him knowing what was happening, past and present pupils at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, were voting secretly for their popular history teacher and sixth form tutor, Marc Fielder, to become the 2020 London Secondary School Teacher of the Year.

Continue reading Top London honour for QE Girls’ history teacher

Going to the pictures once or even several times a week used to be commonplace among the older generation…but with the closure of numerous cinemas across the London Borough of Barnet memories are fading fast.

Continue reading Wanted: Barnet memories of going to the flicks

Bus services on the 383 route are now running directly from Barnet to Finchley Memorial Hospital in response to an appeal by the Mayor of London to ensure that Transport for London responds to the redirection of hospital patients during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Continue reading Easier access to Finchley Memorial Hospital with direct bus

Specialists in medieval buildings have expressed amazement and delight at the discovery in Barnet High Street of an original timber framed roof that might date back to the 14th century or earlier.

Continue reading Medieval timbers uncovered during High Street conversion

A new brasserie and retail space – to be called Botannika – is to take over the former Carluccio’s restaurant at the entrance to the Spires shopping centre in High Street, Barnet.

Continue reading Brasserie offering vegan menu to replace Carluccio’s at Spires

Polish trained chef Lukasz Szumski is planning to add one or two specialities from his grandfather’s recipes to a traditional English menu at the Sebright Arms in Alston Road which has just re-opened as a gastro pub and sports bar after several weeks closure.

Continue reading New landlord joins publicans determined to stay in business

Searching for a celebrity connected wth all 272 tube stations on the London Underground has been a lockdown artistic venture for High Barnet cartoonist and caricaturist Simon Ellinas. He hopes his choices for tube stations in the London Borough of Barnet will become a talking point.

Continue reading Caricatures for Barnet’s Northern Line tube stations

Plastic barriers and traps have been set up across Monken Hadley Common to safeguard great crested newts which might be threatened by the construction of a new water main.

Continue reading Protecting Hadley Common’s great crested newts

To improve access for the disabled and children and visitors in wheelchairs, the main paths in and around the nature reserve at Barnet Environment Centre are to be re-laid with a rubber compound which will make them easier and safer to use.

Continue reading Nature reserve’s new paths will help disabled enjoy sensory trail

Young and old joined in to help with High Barnet Green Beings’ Sunday litter pick in and around the town centre.

Continue reading High Barnet’s litter pickers out in force

Barnet Council is being asked to investigate whether restoration of the boarded up cricket pavilion in Tudor Park sports ground might be financed in part through a community infra-structure levy that will have to be paid on multi-storey blocks of flats proposed for the New Barnet former gas works site.

Continue reading Possible financial lifeline for New Barnet’s decaying cricket pavilion

Years spent walking the dog on Hadley Green and in Hadley Woods and King George’s Field was the inspiration for director and writer Paul Morrison whose new film 23 Walks, starring Alison Steadman, is to have its UK premiere at Barnet Everyman cinema.

Continue reading Dog walking in Hadley inspires Alison Steadman love story

Paintings and drawings on display in the Spires shopping centre are the work of Barnet children who have been isolating at home during the virus pandemic – and some of whom are still too anxious to return to school.

Continue reading Artwork and quilt making inspiring isolated Barnet children and residents

A community garden in New Barnet where passers-by can help themselves to vegetables, fruit and herbs is the first of what might become several similar ventures if the self-help group Incredible Edible Barnet can find sufficient volunteers.

Continue reading Encouraging neighbourhood plots for growing fruit and vegetables

Volunteers are getting prepared for a High Barnet litter pick on the last Sunday in September. Among the top town centre targets will be the Moxon Street and Stapylton Road car parks, the Byng Road playing fields, and perhaps the worst litter black spot of all, the pavements and verges of St Albans Road, just north of the graveyard.

Continue reading Much needed High Barnet litter pick going ahead

A newly formed team of volunteers has started picking and collecting surplus fruit across the Borough of Barnet so that unwanted produce can be diverted to food banks and distributed by other organisations helping the needy.

Continue reading Apple trees laden with fruit to help local food banks

Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s story The Wind in the Willows is to be performed live in the open air at East Barnet – a rare chance for a family outing for theatre lovers who have missed out on so much during the many months of lockdown.

Continue reading Live theatre back in East Barnet – for one day only!

Passers-by and property owners within High Barnet’s conservation areas are being urged to be on the lookout for thieves stripping lead from old and historic buildings.

Continue reading Lead thieves threaten High Barnet’s heritage

Brake Shear House, one of the last of the many small factories and workshops that were once dotted around High Barnet, is currently being demolished to make way for a new development of flats and houses on a site just off the High Street.

Continue reading Demolition of another of Barnet’s historic industrial workplaces

Residents are being asked in an online survey whether more roads should be included within the Barnet Hospital controlled parking zone and whether pay and display parking should be allowed in those streets where parking is currently restricted to residents only.

Continue reading Possible extension to Barnet Hospital controlled parking zone

Separate cycle lanes up and down Barnet Hill – an ambition ridiculed for so long by Barnet councillors – may have become a step closer as a result of the government’s decision to pump £2 billion into schemes to encourage cycling and walking as a way of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading Pressure for new A1000 cycle lanes to reach High Barnet

In a dramatic U-turn, Barnet Council has dropped its plan to temporarily close Barnet High Street to through traffic as a way of ensuring safe social distancing for pedestrians and shoppers.

Continue reading Barnet Council retreats: High Street to remain open to traffic