A print of Graham Turner’s celebrated painting of a young Richard III looking apprehensively across towards the Lancastrian army at the 1471 Battle of Barnet, is to go on display at Barnet Museum to help promote the current archaeological survey to determine the precise site of the battlefield.
Continue reading A misty Easter Sunday morning, just north of Barnet
Building houses and apartment blocks along a narrow, sloping 3.9-acre site, where the land falls sharply by 15 metres, is not a “builder’s dream” says Linden Home’s construction director Shawn Moore.
A radical redesign has been unveiled of the proposed new Noah’s Ark children’s hospice to be built at the environment centre off Byng Road, Barnet.
Continue reading New plans for Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
A final go-ahead for construction work on a £7 million upgrade for the Spires shopping centre continues to depend on signing up an “international fashion brand”.
Continue reading Still no news on major fashion store for Spires
Residents are being consulted about the possibility of a massive extension to High Barnet’s controlled parking zone to cope with uncontrolled off-street car parking and traffic congestion following recent expansion at Barnet Hospital.
The tenth anniversary of the poisoning with radioactive polonium of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko brings back memories for an ex-Barnet journalist who reported on the role of Barnet Hospital in the story surrounding one of London’s most alarming assassinations.
Continue reading Russian spy’s poisoning and Barnet Hospital
A 50-acre green space, open to the public from dawn to dusk, would be one of the suggested benefits of the proposal to establish a natural burial ground on farmland behind Barnet Road and Barnet Gate Lane, Arkley.
A football team for former East Barnet grammar school boys that has expanded over the last sixty years to become a community-based amateur football club, has been celebrating the performance of its top players.
The Ark Academy network says it intends to work with planners at Barnet Council to try to meet local anxieties over proposals for a super-size, £31 million new school to be built on the site of Underhill, the former stadium of Barnet Football Club.
Continue reading Staggered start times at massive new school
An environmentally-friendly natural burial ground might be developed on farmland backing on to Barnet Gate Lane, Arkley, and Mays Lane, if there is local support, and planning permission can be obtained.
Continue reading Arkley farmland – a site for natural burials?
A survey to assess the size and shape of the lost hamlet of Kitts End could assist the ongoing archaeological investigation to determine the precise site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471.
Continue reading Was Kitts End closest to the Battle of Barnet?
The combination of planning relaxations, housing demand, property prices and uncertainty as to Council intentions makes this a critical time for building in Chipping Barnet.
After a year’s delay, and a dearth of information, public exhibitions are finally being arranged to allow public consultation over the proposals to build a new free school with over 1,800 places on the site of the Underhill Stadium, formerly the home of Barnet Football Club.
“The boys dun good” was the general consensus of passers-by as three High Barnet seniors spent 16 man hours giving the Church Passage bench a much-needed wash and brush-up.
High Barnet’s claim to be the highest spot between London and York meant it was ideally situated to take part in the lighting of beacons to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.
Three volunteers spent the morning washing down and scrubbing clean the long, architecturally-designed teak bench that is beside the gardens in Church Passage, just off Barnet High Street.
Continue reading Community action spruces up Church Passage bench
A lot of new housing is coming to Barnet over the next few years. In the Council’s Housing Strategy 2015-25, it expected to be able to build 20,000 homes. But the latest forecast is that some 30,000 will be needed, so more sites must be found.
Local residents will get more opportunities to view the work of members of the Barnet Guild of Artists if arrangements can be made to increase the number of public displays of their paintings and other art forms.
Celebrations surrounding the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death gave an added impetus to the monthly gathering of the Barnet Poetry Group when members spent an April Saturday afternoon discussing the playwright’s many soliloquies and speeches.
Schools in and around Barnet are already queuing up for their pupils to visit the Byng Road nature reserve and its new eco-friendly environment centre after its official opening by leading benefactor Janet Hulme of the Hadley Trust.
Barnet is living up to its fame in Cockney rhyming slang: a survey shows there are more hairdressing salons in the London borough Barnet than in any other part of capital, except for the West End.
Any planning application to build houses on the 14 acres of woods and farmland at Whalebones – between Wood Street and Barnet Hospital – is “highly unlikely” to be approved, says the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers.
Work has finally started at the Elmbank site, opposite the Arkley public house, to demolish derelict nurses’ homes that have been an eyesore for years.
A series of test pits are to be dug on land inside Wrotham Park as part of an investigation to locate the possible site a chapel that was erected to commemorate men killed in the Battle of Barnet of 1471.
Barratt London have released the first details of their plans to build up to 450 homes in and around the site of one of Barnet’s most iconic landmarks, the former headquarters of the National Institute for Medical Research on the Ridgeway, Mill Hill.
Continue reading Another historic building to be converted for housing
Visitors queued up for opening time at Barnet’s historic well house – not for a drink, but a rare chance to descend the twelve steps to see the tanks of the old physic well.
Chipping Barnet’s popular day centre for the elderly – with a waiting list for places – celebrates its 40th anniversary in June.
A joint approach is being made by local groups to try to ensure that the new office block to be built as part of the Brake Shear House redevelopment, just off Barnet High Street, includes as much affordable workspace as possible.
Continue reading Affordable workshops a priority for Brake Shear House site
Barnet’s historic physic well, visited by Samuel Pepys, will be open to the public on Saturday 19 March offering a rare chance to walk down the brick-built stairway to see the tanks filled by spring water.
A campaign is being launched to persuade English Heritage to award one of its renowned blue plaques to the Hadley Green home of the late Dame Cicely Saunders, the Barnet-born founder of the hospice movement.
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