News from The Barnet Society

“The boys dun good” was the general consensus of passers-by as three High Barnet seniors spent 16 man hours giving the Church Passage bench a much-needed wash and brush-up.

High Barnet’s claim to be the highest spot between London and York meant it was ideally situated to take part in the lighting of beacons to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.

Three volunteers spent the morning washing down and scrubbing clean the long, architecturally-designed teak bench that is beside the gardens in Church Passage, just off Barnet High Street.

A lot of new housing is coming to Barnet over the next few years. In the Council’s Housing Strategy 2015-25, it expected to be able to build 20,000 homes. But the latest forecast is that some 30,000 will be needed, so more sites must be found.

Local residents will get more opportunities to view the work of members of the Barnet Guild of Artists if arrangements can be made to increase the number of public displays of their paintings and other art forms.

Celebrations surrounding the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death gave an added impetus to the monthly gathering of the Barnet Poetry Group when members spent an April Saturday afternoon discussing the playwright’s many soliloquies and speeches. The group, established in 1990, grew out of an earlier poetry class organised by the Workers’ Educational Association.

Schools in and around Barnet are already queuing up for their pupils to visit the Byng Road nature reserve and its new eco-friendly environment centre after its official opening by leading benefactor Janet Hulme of the Hadley Trust.

Barnet is living up to its fame in Cockney rhyming slang: a survey shows there are more hairdressing salons in the London borough Barnet than in any other part of capital, except for the West End.

Any planning application to build houses on the 14 acres of woods and farmland at Whalebones – between Wood Street and Barnet Hospital – is “highly unlikely” to be approved, says the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers.

Work has finally started at the Elmbank site, opposite the Arkley public house, to demolish derelict nurses’ homes that have been an eyesore for years.  Once the land has been cleared, Linden Homes intend to build 93 flats and 21 houses on a 3.9-acre site that extends from its frontage on Barnet Road to just north

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.

Barratt London have released the first details of their plans to build up to 450 homes in and around the site of one of Barnet’s most iconic landmarks, the former headquarters of the National Institute for Medical Research on the Ridgeway, Mill Hill.

 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.

Chipping Barnet’s popular day centre for the elderly – with a waiting list for places – celebrates its 40th anniversary in June. “For me it’s like home from home, but with lots of friends to talk to,” says Joan Frankling (96) who was one of the first volunteers when the centre was established in the 1970s.

A joint approach is being made by local groups to try to ensure that the new office block to be built as part of the Brake Shear House redevelopment, just off Barnet High Street, includes as much affordable workspace as possible.

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 campaign is being launched to persuade English Heritage to award one of its renowned blue plaques to the Hadley Green home of the late Dame Cicely Saunders, the Barnet-born founder of the hospice movement.

 Part 1   Walk 3   Section 2: Trotters Bottom to Saffron Green      31st May 2016 It is almost 4 years since David Ely discovered, researched and then wrote up this account of a delightful 2 1/2 miles ‘There and Back’ walk. The starting point is easily reached by car from High Barnet in about 15 minutes.

Planning approval has finally been given for the demolition of one of High Barnet’s worst eyesores, the derelict blocks of nurses’ homes opposite the Arkley public house. After a protracted planning dispute, Linden Homes has gained permission from Barnet Council to build 114 homes, a mix of flats and houses, on the 3.9-acre site.

A woodland project at Barnet’s centre for vulnerable and excluded school children is hoping to qualify for a £12,000 award from Tesco’s Helping Hands initiative. Shoppers at Tesco stores across the Borough of Barnet have the chance to vote for the woodland area being created at the Pavilion Study Centre in Meadway, High Barnet.