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Barnet
Barnet maps
Historic maps of Barnet and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Barnet maps
Barnet area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Barnet and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Barnet
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Barnet.
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or of a photo of Barnet.
The Old Bull Arts Centre And Old Bull Morris Dancers
I joined a "side" of clog morris dancers known as The Old Bull" in 1980. We all attended weekly practices and danced out at various local pubs in the area.
Our practice venue was a former pub known as the Old Bull. It was purchased by Barnet Urban District Council in 1963 with a view to demolishing the building and creating an access road to a bypass parallel to Barnet High Street which was destined to become pedestrianised. However this proposal never matured, and the building was inherited by the London Borough of Barnet when the boroughs merged in 1965. It was used as a Civic Defence Centre and the magistrates office before being opened in 1975 as The Old Bull Arts Centre by a local group who had been running a summer festival in nearby Ewen Hall Barnet for a few years. Our side of Morris Dancers was just one of many arts organisations who used the venue.
I still wear... Read more
Wood Street Barnet
Having responded privately to Steve Laidlaw and now read other log-ins I have decided to add some of my own 'gleanings'. Now residing in New Zealand but having been born and raised in Barnet, and having traced my family history back some 300 years in Barnet/Hadley, I now have sufficient information to build a reliable picture of theirs and Barnets past.
My Peak/Peake (the name is different in some findings) family were also bricklayers and owned land and properties in Wood Street, Arkley, and Hadley in the 1800s. In the late 1700s they owned the area which is now the Church Passage in Barnet. They knew and employed many bricklayers as they were quite a 'dynasty' at that time.
We were also very connected to the Laidlaw family and can relate to much of what has been written regarding them. Our family connection is through Sid Laidlaw's brother Len.
regards
Ray Peak
Laidlaw+ Son
My name is Steve Laidlaw, I was born in Barnet, and at the age of 5 went to Cromer Road School. Myself and three brothers loved growing up in Barnet, my grandfather owned the building firm Laidlaw and Sons where on Saturdays we would earn two and six for cleaning the cement mixers that my father Peter and his work mates would have used that day. My grandmother's name Kitty who passed away when I was about 7. Barnet holds lots of fond memories for me. I would like to hear from anyone who remembers any of the things in my story.
Family Roots
I have no memories of Barnet myself but I have recently learned since my dad passed away that my grandad came from Barnet and was born there by all accounts. His name was William George Wanstall, born on the 22nd January 1907, his mother was Annie Wanstall, nee Keating, and his father was of the same name as himself, William George Wanstall Snr, who was a bricklayer. I do have an address they did live at in Barnet and it is 16, Wood Street. I would love any information on the life and times and even the street he lived on, most of my dad's family are all now based in Birmingham, as Grandad met my nan and she came from Aston at the time so he must have moved here. I am having so much trouble trying to find Wood Street on any map and I just can't understand why. Any help would be much appreciated, to find out about my grandad and the town he grew up in... Read more
Hertfordshire memories
Shopping Memories.
On the left hand side of the photograph next to the zebra crossing is Eastwells, a greengrocers and fruiterers. My father Harold Besent who is in the window in a white coat was a partner and also the managing director from 1940 until he retired in the late 1970s. This photograph was taken before the shop was modernised, and a new door and windows fitted. The back of the premises was very large, there was a very large walk-in fridge and a boiler to boil the beetroots. Further at the back was the yard, home to many feral cats, who earned their keep by keeping the mice at bay.
Further down on the left was the Odeon picture house, the Salisbury Arms pub and Woolworths which had wooden floorboards covered in sawdust.
War Years in High Barnet / Family Connections
I was born in 1932. My father was William (Bill) Cowley, and my grandfather had a coal merchants business, 'Cowley & Sons'. The photograph of Barnet High Street c1955 brought back many happy memories - I well remember Eastwells near the junction with St Albans Road, the Red Lion Hotel, Timothy Whites, Sainsbury's, and Hudson Brothers, on the corner of Moxon Street, where I lived, with many members of the Cowley family until 1940.
We were 'bombed out' on the 16th September 1940, my father's 34th birthday, and we went to live with my aunt at her house in Marriott Road, until we found another house, months later in May's Lane. The war years were a hard time for everyone trying to carry on 'as usual' which was very difficult to do.
I still look back on my early life in Barnet fondly, it has changed so much now but still means a lot to me.
Barnet And Hadley
Hello Margaret, I knew the Cowleys and the Laidlaws, but only as acquaintances. I did work with a Miss Pauline Cowley and lived opposite a Mr and Mrs Cowley in Northfield Road near Cockfosters,New Barnet. I don't know how the Cowleys family tree looks, if you know what I mean. Were they also related to the Sunderlands of Hadley? I knew Barbara and Freddy Sunderland. I do remember the teachers of Byng Road. My class teacher was Miss Evans. My early years were spent in Hadley and Barnet. We moved about because of bomb damage. Lived in a tiny cottage by the infant school, Hadley Common, now demolished. Head Mistress was Miss Channer. I've so many memories of Hadley. Always wondered who lived in those lovely cottages by the pond and next to the big Georgian house. Do you recall the bomb craters that were in the park and on the green? The horse troughs? The many pubs? The fire station(s)? The bonfire nights?
