please empty your brain below
Isn't there some about the bridge carrying the northern line over the Great North Road, it's was supposed to be the first using a certain type of construction - either ever, for railway use or in the uk.

Still anon | 24.11.16 - 7:21 a.m. | #

The Odeon chain did have organs in lots of their theatres, and two London buildings, the Odeon Leicester Square and the Appolo Hammersmith (which was a Gaumont then an Odeon) still have working organs. The organ at Leicester Square is a Compton and is called "The Duchess"
The Odeon chain was part of the Rank Organisation, they also used the Gaumont name and others after several take overs in the 1940's. The "man with the gong" being their trade mark outside theatres with names other than Odeon. (towns with more than one theatre owned by them).
The Troxy Stepney was run by Rank after one of these take overs and they retained the organ there, and that also is in working order today.
Of course most of the buildings have been demolished but Odeon certainly "did" organs.
Twickenham Odeon had an organ and the resident organist was Ena Baga, Hounslow West Odeon had organ resident organist there was Don Knights.
I can name many more.

John | 24.11.16 - 7:45 a.m. | #

Well, that's the last time I trust anything I read in 'Cinemas of Hertfordshire' by Allen Eyles.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 24.11.16 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Great square!

Kevin | 24.11.16 - 7:58 a.m. | #

The Battle of Barnet was part of the Wars of the Roses, not the Civil War.

dg writes: Fixed, thanks.

Tony Martin | 24.11.16 - 7:59 a.m. | #

There wasn't a Duke of York at the Battle of Barnet...

Paul | 24.11.16 - 8:25 a.m. | #

I have some books by Allen Eyles, but not the one you have read. I met him many years ago. His books are normally a good read and well illustrated.
Not having read the book "Cinemas of Hertfordshire' by Allen Eyles I can only think he may suggest that Odeon "did not do organs" as in the original Odeon building programme only 9 theatres had organs installed, at the time it may well be that other chains of cinemas were beating that number. Many of the Odeons that had organs were taken over by Odeon soon after they were built and did not start life with Odeon name.
Richmond (still open) and Twickenham Odeons were both take overs, both had organs.
If you watch the 1957 Peter Sellers film "The Smallest Show on Earth" you can see and hear the organ at the Odeon Richmond, with ice cream girls and all during the interval, as the super cinema scenes were filmed from the Odeon Richmond circle. For the exterior "super" however they used the Odeon Hammersmith frontage before the flyover was built.

John | 24.11.16 - 8:31 a.m. | #

@Paul. The Lancastrian side at the Battle of Barnet would not agree with that assertion.

But the GODOY is more often thought to have been a reference to the unspectacular military career of the second son of George III, promoted way beyond his abilities during the Napoleonic wars.

Timbo | 24.11.16 - 9:11 a.m. | #

Well you certainly picked a good square there. Amazing that there is so much of interest there. The cinema building is wonderful but it's good to see there is so much lovely countryside and parkland, too.

Jon Combe | 24.11.16 - 9:18 a.m. | #

Explain the random selection process!

Alan Burkitt-Gray | 24.11.16 - 9:31 a.m. | #

Unusually I have been to this square but only to visit the Red Lion and the football ground and had no idea how much of interest there was nearby - I get the impression the area around Barnet's new ground is much less interesting.

Whiff | 24.11.16 - 9:47 a.m. | #

Yes, a lucky choice of square, but some of them have to be nice to offset the "nothing much here" squares. Though DG does rise well to the challenge of those.

The whole of the borough of Barnet does have an impressive collection of green spaces, small and large, as does adjoining Enfield. A similar observation could be made about the river valleys - or indeed has been made. London suburbs are rarely as dull as they are caricatured.

Malcolm | 24.11.16 - 10:13 a.m. | #

@Alan B-G DG explained this when he did the first one. The first hyperlink in his account includes a random number generator.

Odd fact about Dukes of York - this hereditary title has been created no less than eleven times, but only the first creation was passed on to a second generation - all the other Dukes of York have either become king, or died without male heirs.

@Tony Martin
Since it became a single Kingdom in the 10th century, England has had at least four civil wars, the Roses war of the late C15th being one of them. But "the" Civil War is usually taken to mean the one in the 1640s.

timbo | 24.11.16 - 10:19 a.m. | #

You certainly struck lucky with this square!

The same can't be said for the residents of Camrose Avenue in Edgware however! What a stupid place to put a football ground!
I do feel sorry for the poor locals who now have floodlights glaring in through their bedroom windows and a hideous LED display sign dazzling them out the front!

The whole thing is accessed through a break between the terraced houses, in a road that contains a width restriction just a few metres away!!

Cornish Cockney | 24.11.16 - 10:33 a.m. | #

Fascinating article !

Unfortunately, the link to the cinema is broken.
dg writes: Fixed, thanks.

Gerry | 24.11.16 - 11:06 a.m. | #

Some fascinating links in this article - many thanks DG.

re: 17) - for those of us who knew this area in the recent past, I suspect it will always remain known as Barnet Odeon!

Frank F | 24.11.16 - 11:12 a.m. | #

Apparently there was no Duke of York at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. Edward IV had indeed inherited the title from his father in 1460, but at the time of Barnet Edward did not use that title, being known - at least among the Yorkists - as King Edward. His younger son, Richard, born in 1473, was created Duke of York in 1474.

Leuconoe | 24.11.16 - 4:59 p.m. | #

I was told that the Odeon cinema was the first one in the UK with a car park, anyone know if this is true.

dg writes: Allen Eyles doesn't say so, only that "the site offered extensive provision for car parking", but as we know, Allen may not be telling the whole story.

gms | 24.11.16 - 11:23 p.m. | #

Cornish Cockney - Underhill was always one of my favourite grounds to visit as an away fan but everything about the new ground seems less than ideal, as demonstrated by the fall in attendances since the move.

Timbeau et al - Richard, 3rd Duke of York, may not have been at the Battle of Barnet and he may not have marched his men to the top of the hill but he did probably give us the rainbow mnemonic.

Whiff | 25.11.16 - 2:42 a.m. | #

@Leuconoe
That is what the battle was to decide - the Yorkists considered Edward Plantagenet to be the King, but the Lanacastrians declared Henry VI to be the King, and Edward a mere Duke.

timbo | 25.11.16 - 7:57 a.m. | #

Not sure about the first Odeon car park. When the early Odeons were built there were not many cars and most of the building were on a detached site so space around for parking not normally a problem.
I will not go into the details of the origins of Odeon, but the original 9 Odeons that had organs were.
Blackpool, Bolton, Weston-super-mare, Worthing, Wealdstone, Swiss Cottage, Kingston, Haverstock Hill and Leicester Square.
Leicester Square organ is still occasionally played, as is think Weston-Super-mare.

John | 25.11.16 - 8:20 a.m. | #

a few years ago I went to an event at the Leicester Square Odeon to celebrate the anniversary of installation of the organ there. Can't remember how many years ago that was, probably not 100. They showed silent films with organ accompaniment (rather than the piano music I'm used to at the BFI) and at the end the organist insisted that the audience should sing Happy Birthday to You in honor of the organ.

amber | 25.11.16 - 9:09 a.m. | #

Great square. I went to school in Somerset Road, took trolleybuses up the hill, watched Barnet FC at Underhill and took my final driving test at the test centre.

B Johnson | 25.11.16 - 9:37 a.m. | #

I'm delighted, finally, that one of my readers has connections to the square, other than watching a film or a football match!

diamond geezer | Homepage | 25.11.16 - 9:41 a.m. | #

Hmmm...

I'm still trying work our whether the colours are Odeonic purple and Yorkshire red, or whether they denote moderate and severe displeasure for comments considered to be slightly off topic !

dg writes: Something like that, yes. Given that both threads reference one of the 20 things in the post, they're hardly off-topic.

Gerry | 25.11.16 - 11:25 a.m. | #

Yorkshire's emblem is the White Rose. The red rose is Lancashire's.

timbo | 25.11.16 - 12:35 p.m. | #

Sheesh - knew about Underhill, but didn't know about the pub and cricket club. It must be completely dead round there now. A crying shame.

Darryl | Homepage | 25.11.16 - 5:11 p.m. | #

I'm quite disappointed that nobody wanted to know what the Barnet Odeon's first film was, or the names of the three architects.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 25.11.16 - 11:30 p.m. | #

Barnet FC actually got itself on to the news a couple of nights ago, thanks to one of their players (Payne) scoring a goal from the halfway line in a match against local rivals Enfield.
Despite finding various search results about the goal, I haven't found any mentioning which ground the (evening) match was played at. Either way, the video clip gave the impression the stands were anything but packed.

RogerW | 26.11.16 - 3:31 p.m. | #

London Broncos now play and train in Ealing..as far as I know. I used to watch them play in the 2 years they were at the Hive and now watch at Ealing Trainfinders, Greenford really. The Hive is actually in LB Harrow and the football crowds are pretty low and we're more when at Underhill. There was quite a fuss when LB Barnet bent over backwards to get Saracens planning permission to move into Barnet Coptal stadium (where London Broncos played for a couple of seasons), bigger stadium now. Ther were not so helpful to the football club.

Roger | 27.11.16 - 12:51 a.m. | #

An excellent write up of an area I know fairly well (although I don't live in that square km).

Great blog.

Mark H | 27.11.16 - 4:33 p.m. | #











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