Place Name
Laid out over a former footpath that led to the Church Farm Industrial School. The street itself is named after the Grade II* listed St Mary the Virgin, East Barnet, that dates back to 1080. As the name of the farm – which was founded in 1857 as a country annexe of a London home for destitute boys – implies, it is connected to the church. The farmhouse next to the church served four boys in its first year of operation. Four years later, in 1864, that number had jumped to 24, and by 1876 it had risen to 79, training boys in trades such as tailoring, as well as farm work. The school moved away in 1937. The church was founded under the patronage of the Abbot of St Albans; it passed to the Crown at the Reformation, with the monarch still appointing its rector. The first building was of rubble, lime, and plaster with unglazed openings, later gaining glass by the 13thCentury. Medieval changes included replacing an apse with a larger chancel and adding a porch, while 19thCentury works saw the addition of a Neo-Norman tower in 1828, new aisles, and major interior alterations. Extensions in the 1880s created a longer chancel with a new east window, and choir stalls were expanded. The lychgate was first built in 1872, rebuilt in 1991, and the church suffered damage in the Second World War, requiring repairs to the roof and walls. Inside, the church contains monuments from the 17thCentury, a crucifix replicating a 12thCentury Byzantine Christus Rex, and a chancel with a wrought iron crown installed in 2000. Stained glass includes the east window depicting the Annunciation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, and a south aisle memorial to parishioners who died in the Second World War. The organ, installed in 1920, commemorates a First World War casualty. Burials include Major General George Prevost and Sir William Richmond Cotton, and a monument honours local landowner Sir Simon Haughton Clarke. St Mary’s should, of course, have an apostrophe in the name. However, new signage has been done without it.
