Another in the occasional series on “Far-Flung Lost London” …

Chipping Barnet  was first recorded in 1321 as Chepyng Barnet, meaning the Barnet manor with a market (Old English cieping).  Barnet itself was first recorded in c. 1070 as Barneto, from the Old English baernet, meaning land cleared by burning.

Church of St John

The church of St John  was originally built here, in the Early Gothic style, in c. 1250,  as a chapel-of-ease to the established church of St Mary in East Barnet (only becoming an independent  parish church in 1866).  It was subsequently substantially rebuilt, in the Late or Perpendicular Gothic style, in c. 1400, and restored in the nineteenth century, and twice in the twentieth.  Today only the north wall survives from the early Medieval church.

There are a number of fine memorials in the church, including that erected by James Ravenscroft to the memory of his father Thomas (d. 1630).