News from The Barnet Society

Barnet’s second medieval festival proved such a success that the organisers are confident they have laid the foundations for an annual event that could become London’s top attraction for Wars of the Roses military re-enactors and enthusiasts.

A new oil painting depicting the 1471 Battle of Barnet by local painter Keith West was unveiled in the Barnet Museum shop in the Spires – one of the events being held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of High Barnet’s shopping centre.

A pioneering New Barnet project for re-using supermarket flowers that have passed their sell-by dates is hoping to secure Lottery funding to expand its work teaching flower arranging to young offenders and residents at care homes.

A school farm to be established in a 5.8 acre-field next to Totteridge Academy, in Barnet Lane, is to start off with a mini flock of Shetland sheep and several beehives.

Among the highlights at the annual commemoration day service for Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School were vocals by one of the youngest pupils and another by a past student whose musical training in Barnet inspired her to become an accomplished soprano.

Residents of the New Bevan housing estate in New Barnet face a daunting race against time to try to raise enough money to save a much-used meeting room and children’s play area.

An education programme aimed at widening public understanding of dementia and palliative care is being offered by the North London Hospice over the next 12 months and includes a summer school for teenagers who might be thinking of a career in medicine, nursing or health and social care.

Working together with other local primary and secondary schools and welcoming the involvement of community groups are among the key objectives of Aishling Ryan, newly-appointed principal of Barnet Ark Pioneer Academy which opens in September with its first intake of 180 pupils.

Several visitors at the first open day of the refurbished Barnet Physic Well fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition to descend the steps to see how the underground well chamber might have appeared when the renowned diarist Samuel Pepys drank its water in the 1660s.

After-school drama classes at the Bull Theatre provided an all-important source of inspiration for a Barnet schoolgirl who is now starring in musical comedy productions that have regularly sold out at the annual Edinburgh Festival.

Thames Water are warning that it will probably be the end of July before there is a final end to the roadworks that have led to road closures and restrictions on traffic passing through the historic village of Monken Hadley.

An alcove in front of Chipping Barnet library has been chosen as the potential site of a large granite sculpture, depicting a family of four, by Finchley sculptor Drew Edwards.

A business plan for opening a combined space for a children’s play area and community activities in Barnet High Street has won this year’s Entrepreneurial Barnet Competition. Joanne Merchant, a High Barnet mother of two, scooped up the top prize of £3,500 in financial backing plus business mentoring advice.

Twice as many Wars of the Roses heraldic banners will be hung from lamp standards along Barnet High Street this summer – just one of the attractions planned to commemorate the Battle of Barnet, and to promote a repeat of last year’s highly-successful Barnet Medieval Festival.

Barnet Hospital’s first nurses’ home, now used for offices, is celebrating the 90th anniversary of its opening – just as work is underway to provide new accommodation for key nursing staff.

Plans for a spring clean-up of litter has attracted hundreds of promises of support after mother-of-three Nanna Blomquist launched a Green Beings High Barnet community organisation to campaign for greater environmental awareness.

Barnet Council’s latest cost-cutting proposal is to end the long-standing practice of locking up gates to parks, gardens and car parks at nightfall. Abandoning this safeguard – which was introduced to prevent anti-social behaviour and vandalism – could eventually save the council £75,000 a year.

Staff and sales assistants at the Spires shopping centre are keen to publicise the location of a defibrillator that has been installed at the High Street entrance with the help of a £500 donation from the Barnet Residents Association.

Resident guardians who have had temporary homes in the former Marie Foster Centre in Wood Street, Barnet, are moving out following the approval of plans to build a 100-room care home on the site.

Plans are afoot – if funding can be obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund – to re-start an archaeological investigation in a renewed attempt to find the precise site of the 1471 Battle of Barnet.