High Barnet

This end of the Northern Line promised something of a two-fer, as High Barnet and Mill Hill East are far enough out and close enough together to warrant doing in one trip. While there is f&*k all in Mill Hill East, I'll do a separate post on it next.

Had a lovely day. High Barnet, or as it is also known, Chipping Barnet (Chipping denoting a royal charter to hold a market, granted, in this case, over 800 years ago by King John and still held today) is rather nice, even if it was pissing down the day I went.

The station itself dates to 1872, making it the oldest station I've been to yet.

Historically, High Barnet has been a major stop for travellers coming in and out of London, so it has always been known for it's coaching inns and thus its hospitality.

Popped into a lovely little sweet shop. I love English sweet shops. I used to go into one in Alnwick 22 years ago when I lived up there. It was run by an old man who loved kids (something that today would, naturally, create suspicion). He used to let the kids buy just a penny or two worth of sweets. I'd always thought that sweet shops were in decline, or confined mostly to seaside towns. So I was happy to learn that this shop had only been open for about 5 months. As I was buying my Rhubarb Custards and Rasberry Pips, I told the owner about this little project (the first time I have done this). Bemused, like most people, he suggested I visit the Barnet Museum if I wanted to get a sense of the history of the place.

Now, I think that the English do small, local museums extremely well. I find them very charming, and lovely in their minutiae. Strawberry Twist in hand, I sauntered across the church close.

Much of the museum seemed to be devoted to WWII, which was kinda cool. On display were an unexploded bomb, gas masks, and local maps of the destruction. But there was also a fantastic collection of British teacups, commemorating this or that, and a fantastic recreation of the Battle of Barnet (1471, Edward VI and the Yorkists won), made with little painted pewter figurines. It's exactly this kind of dedication to a subject, not to be found in any national museum, that I find so lovely.

It occured to me while I was heading to Mill Hill East that I didn't know anybody who lived at any termini, and the closest I could come was Ed Gosney, who lived just beyond Amersham in Buckinghamshire. A lunch date in Amersham was set.

The map.