News from The Barnet Society

Most High Barnet residents are familiar with the Marie Foster Centre – awaiting demolition for redevelopment – but few probably realise that when opened in 1973, the 30-bed hospital in Wood Street was the first purpose-built home in the country for young people suffering from multiple sclerosis.

Local residents and nearby businesses are to be consulted over a plan to build a 100-bed care home for the elderly on the site of the former Marie Foster Centre in Wood Street, Barnet.

To help celebrate the school’s 130th anniversary, pupils at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, organised a wide range of events for their summer fair. Martin Russell, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Barnet, praised the school for its recent academic successes. He was welcomed by the headteacher, Violet Walker.

A joint display of classic cars and vintage armoured vehicles drew record crowds to the fifth annual Barnet Classic Car show at the Army Reserve Centre in St Albans Road, Barnet.

Barnet’s annual Classic Car Show on Saturday (30 June) is to be a joint display alongside vintage armoured vehicles to mark National Armed Forces Day. More classic cars and motorbikes will be taking part because of the extra space available in the parade ground at the Army Reserve Centre, in St Albans Road, Barnet.

After lying abandoned and derelict for years the former nurses’ home in Wood Street, Barnet, is to be demolished to make way for a new care home for the elderly to be built on the Marie Foster care home site.

Two teams of keep-fit enthusiasts entertained shoppers at the Spires shopping centre with a marathon session of continuous press-ups – and raised over £5,000 for charity.

Charging £3,000 to hang heraldic banners from 26 lamp standards in Barnet High Street was condemned as the latest example of the dysfunctional relationship between Barnet Council and its web of private contractors providing out-sourced services.

Such was the enthusiastic response to a real-life re-enactment of the Battle of Barnet that military re-enactors, organisers and visitors were unanimous in their hope that the first-ever Barnet Medieval Festival can become an annual event.

After the closure of High Barnet’s police station in November last year, the local safer neighbourhood police team is keen to improve and maintain contact with local residents.

A development plan for the woods and fields around Whalebones in Wood Street, Barnet, proposes the construction of between 150 and 180 homes to be offset by the creation of two new green spaces and footpaths open to the public.

Barnet High Street is flying heraldic banners from the Wars of the Roses to promote the town’s first-ever medieval festival which is being held this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, 9 and 10 June) to commemorate the 1471 Battle of Barnet.

After months of speculation about the future of the Whalebones estate of woods and fields in Wood Street, Barnet, the trustees are about to announce further details of what they say will be “high-quality residential development” together with green spaces open to the public.

A three-week public consultation has opened on a new scheme of improvements to the High Street – and it’s vital that residents support this chance-in-a-generation to rejuvenate it.

A cup of Battle of Barnet tea or a pint of Battle of Barnet bitter are just two of the tempting offers that are being lined up to promote the Barnet Medieval Festival at the Byng Road playing fields over the weekend of Saturday & Sunday, June 9 & 10.

The Barnet Society supports the current planning applications for both a Premier Inn and relocation of the market to The Spires bandstand site – but only subject to several strict conditions. And we do so in the belief that a big opportunity could be lost.

If Barnet Council gives approval, 26 hand-painted heraldic banners are to be hung along Barnet High Street to promote the Barnet Medieval Festival – a weekend of medieval displays and re-enactments of scenes from the battles of St Albans (1461) and Barnet (1471) to be held at the Byng Road playing fields on Saturday and

Old Fold View was one of several roads in and around High Barnet that was closed off to traffic so that residents could hold a street party to celebrate the Windsor wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Barnet’s annual Classic Car Show on Saturday 30 June is to be bigger and better than ever before – and will be held at a new venue, the Army Reserve Centre, in St Albans Road, Barnet, as part of the celebrations to mark National Armed Forces Day.

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.