News from The Barnet Society

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.

One of New Barnet’s last remaining large Victorian villas – 33 Lyonsdown Road – is being demolished much to the disappointment of community and heritage groups who fear it will be replaced by blocks of flats.

Any hopes on the part of former customers that The Black Horse public house might re-open in time for Christmas and the New Year have been all but ruled out by Star Pubs.

Quinta Village Green and the abandoned former Quinta Youth Club are one step closer to being brought under the control of a group of residents living in and around Mays Lane, Barnet, who have been campaigning for years to safeguard their open space and reopen a derelict clubhouse.

After a seven-year campaign New Barnet community activist Ros Howarth finally says farewell to the last remnants of the abandoned public house The Jester which was left wrecked after a fire in 2018.

Such is the depth of local concern over the continued closure of the Black Horse public house that a petition has been launched to gather support for its future to be safeguarded by Barnet Council with an order to declare it an asset of community value.

Artistic director Siobhan Dunne takes the applause at the final performance of Macbeth at The Bull Theatre...and already she is planning the next production by the Blue Door Company, High Barnet’s highly acclaimed drama group.

Kevin Callaghan, proprietor of the Hole in the Wall Cafe – said to be Barnet’s oldest cafe – is temporarily transferring his business to the premises of the former Dory’s Cafe, another local institution, which ceased trading in the summer.  The Hole in the Wall, established in 1935 and hidden behind hoardings on the Great North

Barnet Football Club has launched an appeal against the refusal of Barnet Council to approve an application to build a new stadium at Underhill.