News from The Barnet Society

Painting and caring for the Battle of Barnet banners which are displayed along the High Street each summer is an historic legacy for the town which volunteers at Barnet Museum hope might gain international recognition.

Such was the success and respect for Barnet’s former weekly newspaper, The Barnet Press, that a century ago it published an emergency edition on sale each evening in central London during the 1926 General Strike.

Barnet Market stalwart David Bone, who has been selling fruit and vegetables since he started as a boy at the age of seven helping on his father’s stall, has been awarded a 2026 Borough of Barnet Civic Award for Lifetime Achievement.

A renewed attempt is being made to get up to date information on the future ownership of The Spires Shopping Centre in High Barnet following a second intervention by the High Court appointing administrators for companies involved with its leases.

Steel piling has been used to strengthen the retaining wall along the side of Jack’s Lake in Monken Hadley Common after the bank sprang a leak which was posing a danger to the long-term future of one of Barnet’s most popular beauty spots.

When Charles Dickens was forced the spend the night at the Red Lion in Barnet he faced some harsh truths – a challenging story line delivered with style and conviction by the cast of Between the Lines, which had its first night at The Bull Theatre in a run of sell-out performances.

A six-year fund-raising campaign for a new community hall at Monken Hadley is not far short of its £1.3 million target with the hope it might be possible finally to start to demolish the existing unsafe Church House by the end of the year.

A service of commemoration and laying of wreaths marked the 555th anniversary of the Battle of Barnet – a service researched and devised by the recently appointed rector of Monken Hadley parish church, the Reverend Francesco Aresco.

Stopping outside a house in a quiet residential street near Oakleigh Park, East Barnet, was mission accomplished for London Ambulance administrative officer David Sleep who is a lover of history and a great supporter of English Heritage blue plaques honouring the lives of famous people.

A two-year struggle to keep going amid the disruption caused by ending up in the middle of a construction site has finally defeated the landlady of the aptly named Builders Arms in New Barnet.

Star Pubs say they hope that the Black Horse – now protected by metal grilles across doors and windows – will reopen by at least mid-June in time for the start of televised football matches in the FIFA World Cup. Several potential tenants are being interviewed by Star’s management team.

Imagining how the great Victorian novelist Charles Dickens might have spent an evening in the bar at the Red Lion public house in Barnet is the highlight of a new production at The Bull Theatre.

A determined community effort in Barnet Vale to rescue and renovate an abandoned former cricket pavilion at Tudor Park has achieved a major objective – and to celebrate there are new artist’s impressions of what the renovated building might look like.

Entertaining groups of Barnet’s senior citizens to a monthly supper evening is one of the many activities organised by one of the town’s oldest charities, the Puddenecks Club. The Puddenecks are volunteers whose mission is to hold events which help elderly residents overcome the loneliness of being home alone.

QE Boys, established by Queen Elizabeth in 1573 as a free grammar for the “boys and youth” of Barnet, is about to begin a new chapter in its history with the opening in August of the first two of three new international schools bearing the brand name “Queen Elizabeth’s School”.

Plans are being finalised for a fresh attempt to determine the site of the 1471 Battle of Barnet which has remained unidentified despite previous searches and an extensive archaeological excavation.

Sebright Arms in Alston Road is one of three Barnet public houses which the Hertford family-owned brewers McMullen’s have sold to Punch Pubs & Co. Two others included in the sale of a total of 30 pubs are the Kings Head in Barnet High Street and the Queens Arms, next to the Everyman cinema.

An attempt is being made to safeguard the long-term future of a Barnet landmark, the Black Horse public house, which has been closed to the public since mid-September last year.

New signs outside The Gate public house at Arkley have resulted in the disappearance of a much-loved historical pub motto which used to adorn a miniature five-bar gate that has been the inn’s trademark for probably a couple of centuries.

Arkley has a new claim to fame – its top two football clubs are now in the same division and when they play each other their home matches are thought to be the closest local derby among leading English football leagues.