The Burroughs

The Burroughs is a place in Hendon, and a civic district of London Borough of Barnet. Centred on the road of the same name where Hendon Town Hall is located.

It was a distinct hamlet until the 1890s as can be seen on this GBvosi|txt=ordnance survey map|e=522800|n=189000|cty=23 of 1873. The name, known from 1316 until the 19th Century as 'the burrows', doubtless refers to the keeping of rabbit warrens. There was an inn, and brew-house, by the 16th century for travellers, very possibly the White Bear, which is so called from 1736, and was rebuilt 1932. Here the "leet courts" were held as late as 1916 to ensure the rights of the Lord of the Manor, to punish transgressors, and fix "Quit-Rent"; for those who had built on manorial land and wastes. By 1697 the inn was the location for Hendon's Whitsun fair. Originally an un-chartered hiring fair for local hay farmers, it was also renowned for dancing and country sports and was imortalised in the lines of a song of the 1810s.

:“Then a soldier fond of battle,
:Who has fought and bled in Spain,
:Finds in Hendon air his metal,
:Well stirred up to fight again.
:Then a justice of the Quorum
:At Burroughs revels, Hendon Fair,
:Finds such order and decorum
:At the White and Funny Bear”

There was cockfighting during the 1820s, and horse racing in the 1860s; but by which time haymakers were contracted directly from Ireland.

From 1735 until 1934 a poorhouse with six cottages used to house older parishioners (and sometimes wrongly referred to as the “alms-houses”) stood where Quadrant Close (occupied by 1936) is now. The Workhouse ceased to be used as such when Hendon Union Workhouse was opened in 1835 in what was then Red Hill and is now Burnt Oak. With the foundation of a Local Board in the 1879 the buildings were later used as offices.

In this same period three religious institutions were established. The first was a Methodist chapel, 1827, which was reached by the footpath of the same name. Later still a Roman Catholic chapel, later Our Lady of Dolours (1863, remodelled 1927). There were even a handful of shops by the 1880s. The modern Methodist chapel, designed by Welch & Lander, was built in 1937. Grove House (or Hendon Grove), built before 1753 was private mental hospital by 1900, it was demolished in 1933, having lost much of its original grounds fronting the road for building. The remaining estate became a public park, and rumours of a secret tunnel abound. A number of picturesque 18th and 19th century houses survived. The Handmaids of Christ established the Convent of St Joseph, in 1882, with a school by 1900.

In 1895 Hendon became an Urban District and, the poorhouse becoming cramped, a new Town Hall was built in 1901 from designs by T.H. Watson. It was made famous as the place where Margaret Thatcher made her first appearance and speech as Prime Minister in 1979. A sculpture, called the "Family of Man" by Itzhak Ofer, was unveiled in the front in 1981.

The Burroughs has other important local buildings. Hendon’s first proper fire station (1914) to designs by A. Welch, superseded another close by in Church End. Another is Hendon Library. Built in 1929 to designs by T. M. Wilson it has been considerably rebuilt inside during the 1972/3 and 2003/4. Eileen Colwell, the pioneer children’s librarian worked at Hendon in the 1930s. Between 1937 and 1939 the Middlesex County Council built the Technical Institute (designs by (H. W. Burchett), which became known as Hendon College, and formally became part of what is now Middlesex University in 1973 (then a polytechnic). Hendon War Memorial was unveiled on St George's Day, 23 April 1922, and was moved to its present location in 1962. Burroughs Gardens is the location of a small Moroccan Synagogue (Porat Yosef).

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