please empty your brain below

Church Farmhouse has always been a local favourite for me on a wet sunday. The kids loving playig with the toys. All that was missing was a decent cafe

Doesn't surprise me that Barnet want to cull it- My wife teaches in Barnet and to be honest they don't care about the kids or their heritage only the bottom line.

As a long-time resident of Hendon I've often visited the museum.
I'm honoured to think you visited our neck of the woods DZ; would have put up the bunting had I known! Hurry back (or Harry Beck...).


Well, you've persuaded at least three more people to visit before it closes. Barnet likes to think of itself as the EasyJet of councils. However, it sounds like a closer parallel is Ryanair, complete with a gobshite at the top...

I have a fantasy about finding the names and salaries of the ten most highly paid people at Colchester Borough Council (but this will work anywhere) and then holding a referendum amongst the local people in order to see which one(s) should lose their jobs. Its time to wrest control of our communities back from these third-rate civil servants, who always get their salaries no matter how bad a job they do.

Thanks for highlighting this, DG - It's a lovely little spot; did you visit the pub next door? Barnet Council is currently in cahoots with Middlesex University in a land-grabbing strategy, as they attempt to shoehorn staff and students into the undersized Hendon campus. As they are after any vacant building or land in the area that they can get, this would be a prime target for despoiling, unfortunately.

Our museum is, indeed, a thing of beauty.

I can't understand why the Local Authority would even contemplate closing it, let alone disposing of it.

As I am now mostly housebound, I had no idea this was happening, but I have signed the petition.

If they won't use it as a museum, how about using it for wedding ceremonies unti, such time as a new council gets in and opens it up again?

It could replace the facilities at Burnt Oak, which are dire to say the least.

Here in Oz we have been faced by devastating floods - the result of highly unusual weather patterns that have a high probability of being, in turn, the result of climate change. The government's response in terms of bill paying, aside from tax levies, has been to axe rental assistance programs (making different people homeless), the body that funds research into learning and teaching in universities (educating future scientists and others who may address the environmental and other impacts of climate change) and, get this, programs targetted at researching and addressing climate change. Beam me up, Scottie.

Of the three thousand who protested about it's closure, how many actually visited it in the last three years? If it only receives 8,000 visitors a year it's not holding many peoples interest. Especially as it seems to have actually interesting displays rather than a couple of local fossils and lots of photo's

I like local museums, but it's rare that I find one that can hold more than half an hours interest.

My one in Slough is truly dire. In an old carpet shop on the High Street. It consists of display boards with lots of old photos and a few dusty cabinets with some ration cards.

Frankly you'd get more out of one of local memories books you can buy in Smiths.

No cash for culture in Barnet - it's much more important that the councillors are paid ever increasing allowances.

The notorious Brian Coleman is a councillor and cabinet member in Barnet, GLA member for Barnet & Camden, and Chair of LFEPA, raking in a total of about £120k in allowances. http://bit.ly/fJ5ddA

Barnet Museum (in High Barnet) is also under threat of closure. The council only covers the running costs of the building as it is run by volunteers.

Both museum buildings would make a tidy sum if sold.

Great post. It is awful that people judge a museum by it's footfall (which I don't believe to be a particularly accurate figure). Some of the exhibitions are far more popular than others, but a local museum shouldn't chase numbers. I go when the exhibitions interest me, which Harry Beck most certainly will.

Barnet Council are a bunch of philistines who "just don't get it".

Having been born and bred near Burnt Oak I'm gutted that this is the first time I've heard of this museum, and that it'll be closed before I'm next there.
Even more amazed that my parents, who are incredibly well informed about what's what in London haven't mentioned it as something to do when we've been over, either! Shame on Barnet.

The Beck map exhibition was open today, but is not yet captioned - perhaps Wednesday or Thursday, they said. It will be taken down a few days before the end of March/the museum.

At £16 cost per visitor - no mention of any admission charge; it's free and STILL only 20 people a day (the same 500 in total probably) come! - to house not even the local history but rather a collection of toys, I'm not surprised it's on the line. I'm a great believer in local services and culture, but this isn't a museum I'd ever use as a front-line example of vital heritage under threat.

Suggestion; find out how much it will cost to maintain closed - probably not much less and fight closure that way and/or set up a Friends group pronto and from them a bunch of volunteers to run it. Doing so will find out how many people really value it and how many are armchair, blog-reading, sign-anythings.

Sorry to intrude with some reality to the cosy 'nasty Tory'-fest.

David - there is already a well-established Friends Group, and they still don't think they can keep the place open.

One banker's bonus would be enough to fund the museum for a year, though.

Since yesterday I've spoken to several other Barnet residents, and all agree that it would make a far better Register Office than the one in Burnt Oak.

Let's keep it and use it rather than sell it. Have you been to Burnt Oak Register Office, David? I was married there, and it was hardly festive.

dg: The bonus of that imposter, the Barclays Diamond geezer, would fund the museum for several *decades*, I think.


They also show round a lot of school parties and do outreach work with community groups. Barnet are very clever at starving a facility of resources, letting it whither away and then saying people don't use it so we have to close it. They are doing the same with other facilites. Thanks for getting up to Barnet!

Wow. I've walked past there several times, even drunk in (and photographed) the Greyhound pub next door, but I had no idea there was a museum there. And I would most certainly have gone in if I had known!

I'm another Barnet resident. Love this museum - have been visiting since I was a little girl and now take my own kids. Will be utterly gutted if Barnet council close it down. Actually, there's no if about it, Brian Coleman's a nasty piece of work, and if that's what he's got his mind set to, it's going to happen.

I went yesterday with my family. The kids had a great time hunting for the teddy bears, my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the exhibits, I found the Beck display superb and then we all spent the best part of an hour playing with the toys upstairs.

Brilliant facility. Barnet will be a poorer place in the long run if it closes and never reopens.

I went here on a school trip when I was little!! A huge shame it is being closed. And also very true how you would have no idea it was there unless someone told you.











TridentScan | Privacy Policy