News from The Barnet Society

Dr Alice Roberts presents the BBC4 program 'Digging for Britain' Two promising pointers towards locating the precise site of the 1471 Battle of Barnet were examined in the final television programme of the current archaeological series, Digging for Britain on BBC4.

After years of uncertainty about its future, Barnet Museum is finally being promised security of tenure – a 125-year lease at a peppercorn rent. Barnet Council’s asset, regeneration and growth committee agreed the move at its most recent meeting.

A unique, almost-forgotten tape recording gives a fascinating eye-witness account of every-day life in Barnet at the turn of the century before last, when horse-drawn coaches, traps and wagons filled the High Street, long before the arrival of the motor car.

After an extensive search with metal detectors a highly-experienced team of military archaeologists has unearthed a host of medieval items that might be linked to the 1471 Battle of Barnet.

A survey to assess the size and shape of the lost hamlet of Kitts End could assist the ongoing archaeological investigation to determine the precise site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471.

A series of test pits are to be dug on land inside Wrotham Park as part of an investigation to locate the possible site a chapel that was erected to commemorate men killed in the Battle of Barnet of 1471.

 Visitors queued up for opening time at Barnet’s historic well house – not for a drink, but a rare chance to descend the twelve steps to see the tanks of the old physic well.

Barnet’s historic physic well, visited by Samuel Pepys, will be open to the public on Saturday 19 March offering a rare chance to walk down the brick-built stairway to see the tanks filled by spring water.

A question mark hanging over the future ownership of Barnet’s many historic almshouses has finally been resolved after the government gave an assurance they would not be included in the extension of the right-to-buy scheme for housing tenants.

Farmland to the west of Wrotham Park, alongside Kitts End Lane and the St Albans Road, is emerging as a likely site of the Battle of Barnet.

It is not well enough known that British cinema was born in Chipping Barnet 120 years ago.  Moving images were then as revolutionary as virtual reality seems now.

A medieval silver farthing that might have been in use at the time of the Battle of Barnet of 1471 is the most dramatic find discovered so far during searches with metal detectors on farm-land beside Kitts End Lane.

When workmen removed the last wooden panels covering up tiling on the walls of 89 High Street, Barnet, they were able to solve the mystery surrounding the painting of a dairy maid.

 Two Victorian measuring jugs from a former public house in High Barnet have turned up mysteriously in the archives of St Peter’s Church at Formby on Merseyside.

A set of painted wall tiles revealed during building work at 89 High Street Barnet depict a dairy maid holding her pail, with cows and chickens in the background.

A training weekend for local metal dectorists in a freshly ploughed field off Kitts End Lane has kicked off an archaeological investigation to determine the precise site of the Battle of Barnet of 1471.

Decorating the High Street with the banners of medieval noblemen might be one of the ways to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Barnet of 1471 if support can be obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Queen Elizabeth I’s charter of 1573 provided for ‘boys and youth’, but it was not until 1888 that Barnet got a school for girls.  Its oldest buildings are not just a gentle monument to a pioneering educational movement, but fine examples of the Arts and Crafts style.

A re-enactment of scenes from a medieval battlefield was the highlight of the official launch of the Battle of Barnet Project – a two-year survey to determine the exact site of one of the grisliest battles of the Wars of the Roses.

Torchlight tour of Barnet’s historic physic well but is another historic building at risk?  Local residents had a rare opportunity to see inside Barnet’s historic physic well when Barnet Museum organised an open day at the well house, a short walk from Barnet Hospital.