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350 Years of Church Farm

2010 is the 350th anniversary of Church Farm, which came into being at the time of the restoration of Charles II, and which is set in the heart of the old village of Hendon,

The Museum will be marking the anniversary with an exhibition tracing the long and fascinating history of the house, from its origins as the centre of an extensive hay and dairy farm to its present day role as the museum for London Borough of Barnet.

There will be events during the course of the exhibition, most importantly a ‘Living History’ re-enactment of daily life in the 17th Century, in the Museum’s charming garden.

In June and July Hendon & District Archaeological Society and University College London Institute of Archaeology will (with pupils from local schools) be digging in the Museum garden, and HADAS & UCL will also be using Church Farm as a base whilst excavating the two WWII public air-raid shelters in Sunny Hill Park, which adjoins our garden.

Come along and join us in celebrating this handsome Grade II* listed building- the oldest surviving dwelling house in Hendon.

Graham Hutchings

We regret to announce the death of local historian Graham Hutchings in December 2009. Graham was Chairman of the Friends of Church Farmhouse Museum from 1995 to 2003. A memorial service for Graham will be held at St Margaret’s Church, Edgware, on Monday 1 February at 3pm, and all who knew him are most welcome to attend.

Mayor’s Charity Appeal Christmas Party

Every December, the Mayor of Barnet’s Charity Appeal Committee holds a party at Church Farm. This year a very enjoyable Victorian High Tea took place on 6 December, and featured the Museum’s recreated Victorian Christmas dining room specially lit with candles. The event raised over £400.00 for The Larches Trust and Resources for Autism, the chosen charities of this year’s Mayor, Cllr Brian Coleman.

During ‘The Eye of Childhood’, the Museum’s very successful Summer exhibition on children’s writers and artists in Barnet borough, visiting children were invited to draw illustrations to their favourite books, or to write a poem or story on the subject: ’ the magic book’. There were lots and lots of lovely entries, which were all displayed around the walls in the exhibition. It was very hard to choose, but finally we selected three pictures and one poem which were particularly good, and those children- all aged between seven and twelve- received small prizes. The winning entries are on show at the Museum until the end of November 2009.

Hugh Petrie, Barnet’s Heritage Officer, recently appeared on GMTV’s family history slot, helping actor Scott Maslem (‘The Bill’) trace his family back to 19th Century Hendon. The feaure was filmed both at the Museum and at LBBarnet’s Archives at Mill Hill.

‘Lines and Bears’, a short film based on the children’s poem of Lines and Squares by A A Milne, has just appeared. Shot almost entirely on location at the Museum last year, the film was made by London company Frantic Films.

The Museum has just been awarded a ‘Renaissance’ grant of £2500 by the MLA (Museums, Libraries & Archives) to promote the virtual tours of its displays featured on this website. The grant is to be used to publicize the tours to those groups, such as people with mobility problems, for whom physical access to the building is difficult or impossible.
The virtual tours are shortly to be enhanced by the inclusion of ‘hot spots’, which enable the viewer to click on particular objects in the room displays and get a close-up of, and information on, the chosen item.

As part of its Winterlude exhibition earlier this year, the Museum held a competition for children in which they were asked to draw their favourite toy from those on display. Over 150 children entered lovely pictures, which were displayed around the gallery walls during the show, and it was a hard task for Brenda Faris, one of our exhibitors, to narrow the entries down to six winners. However, she did so, and last week those children were sent small prizes contributed by the Museum and by Mrs Faris herself. Congratulations to all.

The main work has now been completed on a maze in the Museum Garden. The maze, which is situated in the north east corner of the Garden, just beyond the pond, was made possible by a generous bequest made in 2004 by the late Colette Anna Fontaine, of Edgware, additional funding was kindly given by the Friends of Church
Farmhouse Museum and from the London Borough of Barnet.
The maze was designed by Hugh Petrie and Martin Cragg, and constructed by Martin. Ours is a turf maze, with the paths marked out in brick paviours (nearly a thousand of them) in the grass, and is of the variety known as a ‘puzzle maze’ as it has a number of false trails as well as the one true path leading to its centre.
Although the maze is usable now, we shall properly inaugurate it next Spring, with a day of maze-themed events for children in the Garden.

The considerable slice of North London now covered by London Borough of Barnet has a long and varied past. The fascinating history of a major part of the Borough is revealed in a lively new book by Barnet’s Heritage Officer, Hugh Petrie, who works both at Church Farmhouse Museum and at the Borough’s Local Studies and Archives in Mill Hill. Hendon & Golders Green is the product of extensive new research and contains a wealth of illustrations, including many photographs of the area never before reproduced: it will be the standard study of its subject for many years to come. Hendon & Golders Green is published , in hardback, by Phillimore , and is available in the Museum Shop, at Barnet branch libraries, and at all good bookshops, price +15.95. (NB There is a 10% reduction on this, and on all other purchases from the Museum Shop, for members of the Friends of the Museum.)

The blue plaque in commemoration of Mark Lemon (which has been paid for by the Friends) was officially unveiled on 11th September by the well-known humorist, writer and broadcaster Alan Coren. It is very fitting that this memorial to the first editor of Punch should be unveiled by one of the last. Mr Coren edited the magazine from 1978 to 1987. (Alan Coren has a previous connexion with Church Farm: he was Patron of the Friends of the Museum in the late 1990s.)

We hope that this blue plaque will be a permanent reminder of Mark Lemon- a man who played a significant role in the cultural life of Britain in the 19th Century.