Barnet Band, originally the High Barnet Foresters’ Brass Band, which started performing in 1889 – with just 15 instruments that had cost £42 – is about to reach its 130th anniversary.
Continue reading Barnet Band celebrates its transformation from brass to wind
High Barnet’s most precocious feline – Millie, the 17-year-old tabby that has made a name for herself at the Spires shopping centre – is clocking up ever more online fans.
Barnet’s shock 1-0 defeat of Sheffield United – to reach the fourth round of the FA Cup – has re-awakened tales of other memorable matches from the years Barnet played at the Underhill stadium before the club moved to Edgware in 2013.
“Don’t be mean, keep Barnet clean” is the message on posters which have been appearing outside parks and on street signs around Barnet in a do-it-yourself campaign by local youngsters.
Customers and friends have been paying tribute to High Barnet’s popular milkman, Tam Hughes, whose franchise with Milk and More was terminated at short notice after he had been delivering milk for over 30 years. A collection to say “thank you” has already raised £220 among former customers in Byng Road and Wentworth Road.
Continue reading Farewell to Tam the Milkman – end of an era
Gail Laser, founder of Love Barnet, has won national recognition for the decade she has spent working tirelessly to improve trading conditions in Barnet High Street.
St Mark’s Church, Barnet Vale, is launching an appeal to find out more about the families and relatives of the 29 men whose names are commemorated on a First World War plaque about which little is known.
Continue reading Looking for answers – The Great War casualties
Paula Gabb says her much-celebrated cat Millie – known locally as Barnet’s “library cat” and latterly “Waitrose” cat – has died “peacefully” after being poorly for some time with a thyroid problem.
A row of square, flat-roofed houses in Raydean Road are among the buildings in and around Barnet that are highlighted on a website that celebrates modernist and art deco architecture in the London suburbs that became known as Metro-land.
Continue reading Raydean Road houses – a tribute to modernism
Before Selfies is the title of a collection of photographs taken during the lifetime of Fred Jarvis, Barnet’s oldest and most famous trade union leader.
Continue reading “What’s a selfie?” – asked Fred, 94, next birthday
Fred Howett, a long-standing member of the Barnet Guild of Artists, who helped to organise regular and numerous local exhibitions of members’ art work, has died at the age of 74.
Continue reading Death of popular organiser of Barnet art exhibitions
A double-brush Hertfordshire hedge – re-laid in a way passed on by a Romany gipsy who lived at Welham Green – is the latest addition to the Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road.
Keeping the High Street in High Barnet spick and span gives veteran road sweeper Douglas Shrubb so much satisfaction that he has opted to continue working rather than take retirement.
Millie the Waitrose cat, already dubbed High Barnet’s most sociable feline, has been inundated with good will messages after shoppers at the Spires were told she had recently had a pre-Christmas tummy upset after being given too much unwanted food.
A damp Sunday afternoon did little to dampen the excitement for countless children who enjoyed the traditional fun fair that has become such a popular attraction at Barnet’s annual Christmas Fayre.
A sing song going through favourites of yester-year is a highlight at a Barnet hairdressing salon when 102-year-old Greta Nellie Druce pays her weekly visit to have her hair done.
End of an era. Butcher’s Hook, the last remaining butcher’s shop in High Street, Barnet, has ceased trading and the premises are for sale or to let.
Neil Kinnock led the tributes at a party to celebrate the 93rd birthday party for Fred Jarvis, Barnet’s most celebrated trade unionist – and a New Barnet resident for over 60 years.
Roads running between High Barnet and New Barnet merge together almost seamlessly today, but in the 1930s, when farmland still separated the two towns, the footpath up to the shops in the High Street was through fields filled with cows.
The Barnet Press, once one of the most respected weekly newspapers in North London, has ceased publication after steadily losing circulation and struggling financially.
Generations of Barnet children have enjoyed a trip on the miniature railway that circles the Wood Street garden of Ian Johnson, a well-known retired doctor and skilled model engineer, famed his collection of model steam engines.
A 120ft garden at a traditional Edwardian semi-detached house in Normandy Avenue, Barnet, has secured recognition from the National Garden Scheme – a long-held ambition for the owners.
Providing period cars featured in the hit television series, The Crown – being filmed at Elstree Film Studios, Borehamwood – is just one of the many commissions for a Barnet supplier of vehicles for film and television productions.
Preserving two massive jaw bones from a ninety-foot-long blue whale is just one of the challenges facing the new owners of Barnet’s historic Whalebones House, one of the town’s oldest residences surrounded by woods and fields that are now threatened with redevelopment.
Continue reading Wanted: Advice on protecting Barnet’s whalebones
Celebrations for the Queen’s Sapphire Jubilee, marking her 65 years on the throne, brought back fond memories for former Buckingham Palace pastry chef, George O’Connor, who lives in sheltered housing in Barnet.
After years of uncertainty answers have finally been found to questions about the identity and motives of an early pioneer in the continuing task of defending the footpaths and green spaces that mean so much to members of the Barnet Society.
After what for her personally – and for the rest of the country – has been a momentous political year, the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers, will be the guest of the Barnet Society at our annual question and answer session at 3pm on Friday 20 January.
Two sculptures by the noted Barnet sculptor John Brown are due to appear in Steven Spielberg’s most recent science fiction adventure, Ready Player One, which is being filmed in Birmingham and at the Warner Studios in Leavesden.
Brilliant sunshine and crystal blue skies put some added sparkle into the annual Barnet Christmas Fayre which filled the High Street with a wide variety of stalls and plenty of seasonal cheer.
In the feline appreciation stakes there is currently no contest in determining High Barnet’s most sociable – and safety conscious – cat.
Why not become a member? Receive our latest newsletter hot off the press four times a year, and support our work with a membership.
If you have some local news, history or want to bring something to our attention please email us.
Lucy Bridgers posted a comment on Pub of the year award regained by The Mitre as Barnet’s real ale enthusiasts voice concern over closures in neighbouring Enfield
Dougie posted a comment on With a decision likely within weeks, BringBarnetBack step up their campaign for Barnet Football Club to return to Underhill
Michael Griffin posted a comment on Pub of the year award regained by The Mitre as Barnet’s real ale enthusiasts voice concern over closures in neighbouring Enfield
Anne Stern posted a comment on Plain clothes police proving more effective in tackling Barnet’s shoplifting and drug users than uniform patrols in High Street