Barnet Fair
I went to visit Barnet, the site of probably the oldest fair in England, in 2011 and a more pleasant area of North London I cannot imagine. The M25 to the North doesn’t seem to impinge at all.
I entered Barnet from the north down Thomas Telford’s road to St Albans, not realising how proud he must have been of it. Its deep foundations and wide pavements made it – I think in Telford’s words – “The finest road in all England”. It was a bold undertaking for the Scotsman, which involved cutting through a hill and filling up a valley. Easy these days, but in 1795… (The clay waste from Telford’s excavations form high banks either side of the road.)
The first thing I saw was St John the Baptist’s Church, a splendid building in black and white patterned stone containing the bones of Thomas Ravenscroft, the composer of Three Blind Mice (amongst, I imagine, other things). After advice from Dennis Bird of the Barnet Museum and History Society, I turned right at the church where the area is known as The Squeeze – understandably, see #1 – and followed Wood Street (the turning to the right in front of the church) west to find “The Old Common” in Chipping (= market) Barnet.
The area was huge, probably a tribute to the poor soil, as large commons and parks usually are. And here was the original market area or Old Common (#2).
(Barnet Fair was granted its charter in 1199 and thrived for four centuries as a leather goods & livestock market until the 17th century. The story of how London butchers complained about travelling that far north and how Leighton Buzzard joined in – their market day was inconveniently close to Barnet’s – is too long to go into. Anyway, Smithfield had established itself as the dominant London market by 1700. However, some 40,000 cattle and horses galore changed hands every year in Barnet and there was an influx of pigs to fill any gaps in business activity.)
#3 is a picture of The Gate, at the edge of the Old Common at TQ 217952, which reminds me of The Gate Hangs High, near Banbury: the wording shown on the gate is the same in each case. The Gate was certainly packed with drovers as the fair days in September and April drew close.
Before Telford’s road was built, drovers used Galley Lane (#4) to enter Barnet from the north because it was wide; I wondered if they used Wash Lane (#5), which has an old-fashioned appeal to it to this day.
I wish I’d stayed longer. Charming place with lots of History. (Incidentally, Dickens stages Oliver Twist meeting the Artful Dodger in Barnet – “…every other house in Barnet was a tavern, large or small,” says Oliver.)
