More about Barnet & Potters Bar

Barnet was the site of the Battle of Barnet in 1471, where Yorkist troops led by King Edward IV killed the rebellious "Kingmaker" Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and Warwick's brother, John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu.

It is the site of an ancient and well-known horse fair, hence the Cockney rhyming slang of "Barnet" for "hair". The fair goes back to 1588 when Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the Lord of the Manor of Barnet the right to hold a twice yearly fair.

Chipping Barnet was a civil parish of Hertfordshire and formed part of the Barnet Urban District from 1894. It was abolished in 1965 and its former area was transferred to Greater London. In 1801 the parish had a population of 1,258 and covered an area of 1,440 acres (6 km²). By 1901 the parish was reduced to 380 acres (1.5 km²) and had a population of 2,893. In 1951 the population was 7,062.

In Saxon Times, the site was part of an extensive wood called Southaw, belonging to the Abbey of St Albans. The name of the town appears in early deeds as Bergnet - the Saxon word Bergnet signifies a little hill, monticulus. Its elevated position is also indicated in its alternate name of High Barnet, which it bears in many old books and maps, and which the railway company restored. It an old belief that "Barnet stands on the highest ground betwixt London and York."

Potters Bar is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire, England, located 18 miles (29 km) directly north of central London. In 2001 it had a population of 21,639.

The town started life in the early 13th century and remained more or less unchanged until the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1850. The town is part of the London commuter belt and its name entered national headlines as the site of a rail crash that killed 7 people on 10 May 2002.

The origin of the Potters component of the town's name is uncertain but is generally thought to have been derived from evidence of a Roman pottery that was thought to have been sited locally, or from the family Pottere who lived in the South Mimms parish. The Bar component is thought to refer to the gates leading from the South Mimms parish and into the Enfield Chase parish, or possibly from some sort of toll on the Great North Road. The original "Bar" is said to have been at what is now the Green Man pub, or at the current entrance to Movern House.

Potters Bar was historically part of Middlesex and formed the Potters Bar Urban District of that county from 1934. From 1894 to 1934 its area had formed the South Mimms Rural District. In 1965 the district was transferred to Hertfordshire while most of the rest of Middlesex became part of Greater London.

< Back to Barnet & Potters Bar home page