Oak Hill Park, backdrop to the East Barnet Festival

Long ago, when enormous forests covered much of Britain, the sheltered valley of Pymmes Brook was renowned for its oak trees. In early Saxon times the foundations of St Mary's Church - which pre-date the origins of Chipping Barnet (High Barnet) - on the steep hill above the valley would have been laid down using this timber.

When the Normans came to the area the oaks were employed in the building of St Albans Abbey and for many centuries the land remained under the jurisdiction of the abbey as part of Hertfordshire. The descendants of those trees survive in Oak Hill Wood - a haven for wild life - managed by the Barnet Branch of the London Wildlife Trust

After the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536 the church lands were sold and substantial houses and parklands were created. These live on in the names of streets and schools in the district ~ Littlegrove, Osidge, Bohun Lodge, Mount Pleasant, and indeed Oak Hill House, now Oak Hill Theological College.

In Victorian times, to the west, steam trains of the Great Northern Railway roared through on their way from central London to York and Edinburgh. With the opening of New Barnet Station in 1850, and then Oakleigh Park Station in East Barnet, substantial Victorian houses sprang up in these districts.

Oak Hill Park was created for public use in the 1930s, raising much of the valley floor above the brook's flood plain by using soil excavated from the Southgate section of the Piccadilly Underground railway, which had been built to serve the new suburbs springing up on the hillsides. Over the years, the park - administered since the local authorities reorganisation of 1965 by the London Borough of Barnet - has acquired sports and childrens' facilities and a café, and now provides a fine and beautiful arena for the Festival.

(Mike Young - May 01)