please empty your brain below
You are spot-on regarding New Southgate station, which I have the misfortune to use a few times each year.
Although there are bound to be competitors, I've personally never used a more ugly or soulless station on my various travels.

Frank F | 03.03.17 - 7:42 a.m. | #

Had expected Woodhouse College to be in your top 10.
Notable alumni are many (notable mention to my wife) and include Michael McIntyre, Cyril 'odd odes' Fletcher, Oliver Postgate, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Naomie Harris, and 'Judge' Rinder!

dg writes. Blimey. Unfortunately the college lies 50 yards beyond the district border, in the Municipal Borough of Finchley.

Frank F | 03.03.17 - 7:52 a.m. | #

I went to school in Friern Barnet from 67 to 72. A few residents of the hospital, then called Friern Hospital, used to wander the streets and spend time in the library, they were probably still in the hospital because there was nowhere else for them to go. Their lives seemed very sad.
There was not much excitement in Friern Barnet but I remember seeing Gypsy Moth IV on the back of a lorry parked outside the hospital one morning.

cliffh | 03.03.17 - 7:54 a.m. | #

Don't forget that New Southgate and Arnos Grove (in the borough of Enfield) stations are only about 10 minutes walk apart - although there is no bus link between North Finchley and Arnos Grove, passengers are forced to use Bounds Green instead.

Didn't New Southgate have a signal box that was actually under the arch of the bridge that carried Friern Barnet Road over the railway.

There is a church in Friern Barnet Lane - St. Katherine's looks like a regular C of E place, but is actually Greek Orthondox - not sure if was always thus, or changed hands, but an example of how ultimately outsiders become insiders.
[Streetview link 1] [Streetview link 2]

Still anon | 03.03.17 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Cyril Fletcher went to Friern Barnet Grammar School which became part of Woodhouse College in 1995.
The school was located between the hospital and the town hall well within Friern Barnet.

cliffh | 03.03.17 - 8:18 a.m. | #

Apparently, New Southgate station used to have buildings, including a large branch of W.H. Smiths, on the bridge above the platforms. It burned down in the 70s and was never restored; today if you look up from the platforms to can see a big empty space between the staircases where it used to stand.

DR | 03.03.17 - 8:28 a.m. | #

Lovely!

Leuconoe | 03.03.17 - 9:05 a.m. | #

I'm so pleased that Queen Elizabeth's well.

Petras409 | 03.03.17 - 9:10 a.m. | #

So is it Free-ern Barnet, or Fry-ern Barnet?

I've always said the former, though I've never been 100% sure. Probably because growing up elsewhere in the borough I'd heard it mentioned at some point.

Cornish Cockney | 03.03.17 - 9:27 a.m. | #

Although its a painting - its the only illustration I could find of the signal box under the bridge.

http://www.friern-barnet.com/picture/number578.asp

Still anon | 03.03.17 - 9:46 a.m. | #

Wot? No picture of the harridan in pink?

I have always pronounced Friern as Free-urn). Is that wrong?

Chris | 03.03.17 - 10:09 a.m. | #

I've always thought it was pronounced Fry-ern, and this seems to be the suggested pronunciation on Wikipedia - not that that's necessarily correct.

Lucy | 03.03.17 - 10:39 a.m. | #

@Still anon: the picture of the signal box appears to be a photo (possibly tinted?) and not a painting. The words 'The Friern Barnet Photo Archive' are in the bottom left-hand corner.

Great Aunt Annie | 03.03.17 - 10:46 a.m. | #

PS: Unless, of course, it's a photo of a painting. :)

Great Aunt Annie | 03.03.17 - 10:51 a.m. | #

Genuinely sad to hear of the reduction of library services across the borough, but surprised that nobody has commented on the horrid eyesore that is South Friern Library - utterly out-of-place and unsympathetic with the surrounding environment.

Frank F | 03.03.17 - 11:07 a.m. | #

Living nearby from 1950 to 1970 (approx) I never heard Free-urn, always Fry-urn. I'm pretty sure that Free-urn is a recent variation, possibly started by people whose native tongue did not undergo the vowel shift from ee to eye (i.e. any language but English).

Malcolm | 03.03.17 - 11:20 a.m. | #

It's announced as Fry-ern Barnet on the buses. OK, that doesn't mean it's necessarily correct, but I guess someone would have kicked up a fuss about it by now if it was wrong.

Fry-ern makes sense given that the name derives from Friary.

Leo | 03.03.17 - 12:01 p.m. | #

My money is on a tinted photo. The colours on the train look impossibly clean, which gives the impression of a painting. But the random artefacts of light and shade on the left and right sides of the picture (high up) look like a camera put them there, not an artist.

Malcolm | 03.03.17 - 1:10 p.m. | #

Instead of a tinted photo, it could be one those Bob Dylan paintings.

Still anon | 03.03.17 - 2:09 p.m. | #

When I first moved to London my buses home terminated at Friern Barnet, and until the advent of iBus I had absolutely no idea how it was meant to be pronounced either!

moogal | 03.03.17 - 2:17 p.m. | #

When my parents married after the War they rented rooms in a house in Friern Barnet and I lived there until I was 2 years old. My parents always pronounced it as Fry-earn Barnet and reminisced about the happy times they spent in the area.

Sara | 03.03.17 - 3:53 p.m. | #

I went to The Compton School around the corner from Friern Barnet and remember being told, in history class, that the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum grounds had had over 3,000 dead bodies randomly buried around the grounds.

I cannot find any reference to this online but it could be why they have not been built on, or it's something we just made up as children to scare each other when we used to go there after dark, circa 1994.

tim | 03.03.17 - 4:48 p.m. | #

It doesn't crop up in my conversation much at all, but it seems for 60-odd years I have been mis-pronouncing Fry-ern Barnet!

DG strikes again!

Chris | 03.03.17 - 6:05 p.m. | #

@Malcolm

I think at least one of those artefacts was caused by bending the postcard. But I agree it's likely to be a tinted photo. Colour film fast enough to stop a moving train would have been very rare in 1923.

(The photo is probably a little older- although the locomotive is displaying the insignia of a company that ceased to exist at the end of 1922, it would have taken time to repaint the entire fleet. However, the direction and length of the shadows suggests summer rsther than March)

Timbo | 03.03.17 - 6:49 p.m. | #

New Southgate station is where I begin and end my daily commute and am in complete agreement with Frank F regarding the place but what a contrast to the elegance of Holden's masterpiece, the nearby Arnos Grove station.

DG - if you happen to ever be in the area again then New Southgate Cemetry is worth a visit and you'll always be welcome to pop in across the road for a cuppa

Steven | 03.03.17 - 8:20 p.m. | #

I, a non-Londoner, have always said Fry-ern, but admittedly I only heard of the place because of Harry & Paul's character Brian Farnett from Friern Barnet (the perennial Dragons' Den contestant).

If it was Free-ern he'd be called Ian.

| 03.03.17 - 9:13 p.m. | #

Aww you beat me to the Harry and Paul reference

Stephen | 04.03.17 - 3:05 a.m. | #

I was very keen to see how the Princess Park website refers to the history of their building without once mentioning the Asylum but the page linked is just an empty blue space.

dg writes: That's your computer, Stephen, unable to load Princess Park's over-fussy flash site.

This one's better http://www.thecomergroup.com/development/princess-park-manor

dg writes: The one you can't read is 'better'.

Stephen | 04.03.17 - 3:08 a.m. | #

Has Colney Hatch anything connection with London Colney, near St Albans?

timbo | 04.03.17 - 7:05 a.m. | #

Fascinating stuff. Great to read about Barnet. Couldn't agree more about the libraries.

Totteridge Walker | Homepage | 04.03.17 - 11:26 a.m. | #

In the early 70s, as a student mental health nurse, I did an escort duty taking a young woman from Maudsley Hospital to what was then known as Friern Barnet Hospital. The ambulance crew and I delivered her to the ward, and I can still remember the shock and horror I felt on seeing the conditions. I was, of course, used to how Maudsley and Bethlem Hospitals were, and realised that I hadn't been living in the 'real' world at all. Thank goodness those big asylums are gone. The problems their demise has left is another story.

Christine | 04.03.17 - 12:08 p.m. | #

My mother, now 92, and her classmates from Moreland Street School , Finsbury , were taken by coach for a number of visits to a "Sunshine School" in Friern Barnet in an attempt to improve their health. Classrooms had French windows opened on warm days; plenty of outdoor activities were provided and fish and chips brought in for lunch. I have spent several hours trying to find out where it was to no avail. Can anyone help?

Keith | 05.03.17 - 6:11 p.m. | #

I went to Friern Barnet Town Hall to sort out my student grant in the late '70s.
Barnet Council had some offices there and some in Hendon.
Was a long way to cycle from Golders Green!

Helen D Vecht | 07.03.17 - 2:25 p.m. | #











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