News from The Barnet Society

A blue plaque has been installed outside a house in Calvert Road to draw attention to an ongoing dispute between residents and Barnet Council over the painting of double yellow line parking restrictions at the junction with Sebright Road.

A job club is being established at the Hope Corner Community Centre in Mays Lane, Barnet, offering three sessions a week aimed at giving advice on employment and training and a chance to learn new skills.

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.

Young musicians will be to the fore during a summer season of concerts to be held at several High Barnet venues including the parish church of St the Baptist. Barnet viola player Inis Oirr Asano (above), who lives in Underhill, will be appearing with the Elmore Quarter during the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival in June.

Homeless Action in Barnet – a leading charity assisting rough sleepers across the borough – is organising an open day at its headquarters in Woodhouse Road, North Finchley, where a highlight will be a fashion show of outfits created and modelled by some of those who are being supported.

Residents of two narrow streets of mainly small cottages and terraced homes claim they have been ignored and abandoned by Barnet Council which has imposed double yellow lines at the junction of Sebright and Calvert Roads without proper consultation.

After several years of uncertainty about its long-term future, Barnet Council has finally found new premises for the Rainbow Centre, a vital community hub for residents of Underhill and especially the Dollis Valley estate.

A special 263 Sunday service to Barnet Church – in support of Comic Relief – provided bus passengers a chance to step back in time and hop on board an iconic Routemaster.

Barnet’s music lovers are in for a feast of summer events with organisers announcing programmes for concerts right through to August including an annual highlight of four evening performances in the woods beside Jack’s Lake at Monken Hadley Common.

Terminally ill householders in the London borough of Barnet will be removed from council tax if they qualify under a new relief scheme which takes effect in April.

Litters pickers from Barnet Residents Association fanned out across the town in one of the association’s regular clean ups – the kind of initiative which the Chipping Barnet MP Dan Tomlinson hopes will be encouraged by his new community action network.

After hearing some vociferous complaints from Underhill residents, Barnet Council has agreed to review two controversial issues – the imposition of the Underhill South controlled parking zone and a decision to abandon the existing split between private and social housing in the regeneration of the Dollis Valley estate.

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.

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.

Organisers of a busy programme of summer shows and festivals in and around High Barnet hope there will be maximum support this year because today’s tough times are forcing the postponement and even cancellation of some popular events.

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.