Barnet Museum

#167

Community-run local history museum charting Barnet from medieval crossroads to coaching hub and suburbia. Displays knit together the 1471 Battle of Barnet, the Great North Road coaching era, domestic crafts (including lace and straw work), and everyday life told through costume, toys and household objects.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 14:30 – 16:30

Tuesday: 14:30 – 16:30

Wednesday: 14:30 – 16:30

Thursday: 14:30 – 16:30

Saturday: 10:30 – 16:00

What's not to miss inside?

Battle of Barnet Gallery

One of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses (14 April 1471) unfolded just north of the town.

Maps, reproduction weapons and local finds explain how fog, misalignment of lines and ‘friendly fire’ shaped the outcome for Edward IV and Warwick ‘the Kingmaker’.

Trace the troop positions on the relief map, then match place-names to modern roads to visualise the field.

📍 Front rooms

Great North Road & Coaching Barnet

Barnet thrived as a staging post on the coach road to the North in the 18th–19th centuries.

Inn signs, booking-office paperwork and coachman’s kit show how timetables, horse-changes and turnpikes powered long-distance travel before rail.

Compare an inn tally or waybill with the wall timetable to work out a real change-over schedule.

📍 Main gallery run of cases

Costume & Domestic Life

Clothing, lace and household tools reveal class, work and fashion across centuries.

From fine lace collars to workaday smocks, textiles double as social documents stitched in thread.

Look for repair marks and altered seams—evidence of re-use long before ‘sustainability’ was a word.

📍 Upstairs rooms

Toys & Dolls Collection

Playthings mirror technology and taste—from bisque dolls to tinplate and plastics.

Miniature kitchens, prams and games show how children rehearsed adult roles at home.

Spot materials by era: bisque/cloth (late 19th c.), celluloid (early 20th c.), injection-moulded plastic (post-WWII).

📍 Lower level

🤓 Fun Facts

The museum occupies a historic townhouse near the medieval parish church of St John the Baptist, rooting the collection in the old town’s original street plan.

Interpretation of the Battle of Barnet emphasises the notorious fog that morning—misrecognition and lateral fire likely caused the Earl of Oxford’s men to be mistaken for enemies, swinging momentum to Edward IV.

Barnet’s coaching identity comes through in material culture: inn tokens, waybills and harness hardware survive because paper and leather were kept as business records and repair stock.