News from The Barnet Society

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.

The tsunami of tall buildings that started 20 years ago in West Hendon and Brent Cross is now breaking on the northern suburbs of Barnet. Above are samples: High Barnet Place and Great North Leisure Park, both refused by the Council but called in by the Mayor of London; and Edgware town centre, approved by the Council. Their transformation of our borough, visually and socially, should surely be a local election issue on 7 May.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An application to build a six-bedroom house in a protected wood between Sunset View and Hadley Green has been rejected by Barnet Council on the grounds it would cause unacceptable harm to a woodland habitat.

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.

Work has started on foundations for a new studio which is being built for the Barnet Guild of Artists as part of the housing development which is underway in the Whalebones fields and woodland off Wood Street, Barnet.

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.

Since Barnet Council decided in December that it was minded to refuse Barratt London’s planning application, the Mayor of London has called it in for review. A public hearing seems likely directly after the local elections on 7 May 2026. The Barnet Society & Barnet Residents Association are greatly concerned that the Mayor’s decision won’t be impartial, and has sent the letter below to our MP, Barnet Councillors and its Greater London Assembly Member.

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”.

Traffic in Barnet High Street was at a standstill after a dramatic late morning crash when a car being followed by police cars struck the side of a No 34 bus waiting in the lay-by next to the Red Lion public house.

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.

Barnet town centre is to lose one of its four remaining banks – and customers feared another might be going as well – as the big banks announced another massive round of branch closures.

This is a Badger Boar in Chipping Barnet Woodland at 5:53 am on New Year’s Day 2026. It’s one of several fine photographs in this article by Marianne Nix, a Barnet Society member who lives opposite the spinney by Christchurch Lane and designs leaflets and posters for the Save Chipping Barnet Woodland petition. She writes here in her personal capacity.