Pymmes Brook New Barnet

Pymmes Brook
Pymmes Brook flows south and east and is joined by the Shirebourne from the west

Post to the north Hadley Wood
Post to the east Cockfosters

Station Approach
Development spread out from New Barnet station after 1850.
New Barnet Station.  Opened in 1850 it now lies Between Hadley Wood and Oakleigh Park stations on the East Coast Main Line Railway from Kings Cross, on which it was one of the original stations.  It was opened as 'Barnet' in an isolated area a mile from the town centre and with staggered platforms.  It was not until 1875 and the start of the service from Finsbury Park that the area began to develop. It was enlarged in 1867 and 1876, renamed New Barnet in 1884, and then completely rebuilt in 1896. The station was refurbished in the late 1980s leaving the original station booking office on the overbridge between the platforms. This was however burnt down in a fire caused by a thunderstorm in 1989. It has been refurbished again in 2006.
Signal boxes – there was a box at the south end 1895-1971, and one at the north end 1895-1924 and New Barnet North signal box  which was the last survivor. This was used as a temporary panel before King's Cross Power Box took control. It was painted in cream and white. Closed in 1976.
Goods yard and shed.  This was provided when the station became busier in the 1970s. The shed still stood on the up side in the Seventies, but has since been demolished to provide a site for the station car park.
Sidings, once stretched back towards Oakleigh Park, have gone, and have been redeveloped for housing.

Albert Road
Gas works. The works was opened in 1866 by the East Barnet Gas and Water Company. In 1872 this took over two other local gas companies and became the Barnet and District Gas  and Water Co. It was nationalised in 1947 and became part of the Eastern Region Gas Board
Gas holder for Barnet Gas Works.  Built by the Barnet and District Gas  and Water Co.   There were a number of previous holders on here, but a holder is shown on maps at this location from around 1914. It is however said officially that it dates from 1934..
Builders Arms. Set back from the main road. It Is a Greene King tied house with a rear garden and live music at weekends.
Salvation Army. Hall built 1886.

Baring Road
Livingstone Primary school.  Built 1952-3 by James Cubitt and Partners for Hertfordshire County Council.

Boleyn Way
Housing Estate on site of Maw’s factory. Maw had been founded in the City of London in 1807 by George Maw with a surgical plaster factory.  They diversified into pharmaceuticals and were based in Aldersgate.  The factory here was opened after in 1921 and closed in 1982

Bulwer Road
5 Constable House. Police station converted to flats. Built 1907
Anchor Hall. Finchley Boxing Club. Gym and training base

Cromer Road
Cromer Road Primary School. Dates from the 1930s

East Barnet Road
13 Railway Bell. Wetherspoon's pub with railway memorabilia on the walls and trains going by.  
23 East Barnet Valley United Services Club
49 Lord Kitchener
St.James Church. Built 1911 by W. Charles Waymouth.
Kingdom Hall

Leicester Road
Telephone Exchange
New Barnet Friends Meeting House. Built in the 1930s

Lytton Road
24 The Village Greek – this was the Lytton Arms also known as the Wishing Well and later as The Stables.
Flats on the site of the Fire Station

Margaret Road
Children’s Centre in premises of Margaret Road Infant School – in one of the oldest school buildings in the area

Park Road
Victoria Recreation Ground. A Victorian park with wide open south sloping grassland areas and a formal rose garden

Plantagenet road
Brethren’s Meeting Room

Station Road
War memorial, slim, by Newbury Abbott Trent.  It has a 109-foot high bronze figure representing “Victory” and a carving in stone over the western panel which shows the victory of the “British Lion” over the “German Eagle”. It remembers the 278 men of New Barnet who gave their lives in the Great War. It was unveiled in 1921 by Viscount Hampden.
32 Formerly East Barnet Valley Local Board Offices. A brick-and-stone Italianate building built in 1891-2 following an open competition in 1889 won by Frederick Shenton.  Put up for sale in 1988 it was converted in 1996 into a restaurant. The change of uses being signified by the replacement of the gable clock with a Roman statue. Now flats.
The Railway Tavern

Tudor Sports Ground
Public park with a golf course, but has other sports facilities and a children's playground
Tudor Park golf course. Nine hole 'pitch and pay'

Victoria Road
20-26 Optex House
48/50 New Barnet Community Association. Formed in the 1970s they leased the former annexe of John Hampden School in 1983 and run a community base from it.
John Hampden School. This mixed secondary modern school was burnt down in the early 1960s. Barnet College of Further Education was later on the site which had formerly been South Herts College of Further Education

Westbrook Crescent
John Hampden School moved here from Victoria Road in the 1960s as a mixed comprehensive. East Barnet Modern School, later Grammar School were based in Chestnut Grove from the 1930s. In 1971 both schools became comprehensive with the Westbrook Crescent site becoming East Barnet Junior High School and by 1976 were the same school on two sites. In 2010 the school moved to Chestnut Grove and Westbrook Crescent became the Jewish Community Secondary School.

Sources
Michael Robbins, The North London Railway
London Railway Record articles
Friends of the Earth.  Gas Works Sites in London.
Whitelaw, Hertfordshire Churches and other places of Worship. 
CAMRA Real Beer in London
Field. Place names of London
GLIAS Newsletter
London Encyclopedia
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Morris. Archives of the Chemical Industry
London Borough of Barnet - Barnet Histories web site
War memorial - a number of local press websites in Barnet describe re-dedication of the memorial
John Hampden School web site


Comments

Anonymous said…
Building on corner of Bulwer road and lytton toad was a telephone exchange not a police sattion and is commercially used-not flats. The bluelight and the name cosntable house was the previous owner being a bit playful

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