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Colney Hatch

Areas of LondonDistricts of the London Borough of BarnetPlaces formerly in MiddlesexUse British English from August 2015
Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch, Southgate, Mi Wellcome V0014496
Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch, Southgate, Mi Wellcome V0014496

Colney Hatch () is the historical name for a small district within the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Colney Hatch refers to a loosely defined area centred on the northern end of Colney Hatch Lane (B550), which connects Friern Barnet with Muswell Hill, crossing the North Circular Road. The area is predominantly residential with a mixture of Victorian and Edwardian houses and much more recent development.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Colney Hatch (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Colney Hatch
Dudrich Close, London Friern Barnet (London Borough of Barnet)

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Wikipedia: Colney HatchContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.61054 ° E -0.15575 °
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Address

Dudrich Close

Dudrich Close
N11 3DW London, Friern Barnet (London Borough of Barnet)
England, United Kingdom
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Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch, Southgate, Mi Wellcome V0014496
Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch, Southgate, Mi Wellcome V0014496
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Nearby Places

Coppett's Wood and Scrublands
Coppett's Wood and Scrublands

Coppett's Wood and Scrublands is a 14.5 hectare Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade I, between Muswell Hill and Friern Barnet in the London Borough of Barnet. It is part of the Coppett's Wood and Glebelands Local Nature Reserve.The main trees are oak and hornbeam, and ground flora include bluebell and garlic mustard. Breeding birds include woodpeckers, tawny owls and sparrowhawks. A small pond has a clump of yellow iris, and common frogs and smooth newts. Scrublands has a variety of habitats and some rare plants such as imperforate St John's-wort. There are several rare species of insects.Coppett's Wood was once part of a forest known as Finchley Wood. By the sixteenth century it had shrunk in size and became known as a common, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was used for pursuits such as bare-knuckle boxing, horse racing and pigeon shooting. It also had a reputation as a haunt of highwaymen. In the nineteenth century a sewage works was built on the site. It was closed in 1963, but still has its legacy in the rich variety of plants in the Scrublands. In the Second World War it was used for military training, and several tank traps still remain.Access to the site is from Colney Hatch Lane and North Circular Road. The Coppetts Wood Conservationists meet on Sunday mornings throughout the year with the aim of maintaining the nature reserve, increasing its biodiversity and enjoying some sociable exercise.Coppetts is also a ward of the London Borough of Barnet. At 2011 Census the ward population was 17,250.

Friern Hospital
Friern Hospital

Friern Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) was a psychiatric hospital in the parish of Friern Barnet close to a crossroads which had a hamlet known as Colney Hatch. In 1965, it became part of the London Borough of Barnet and in the early 21st century was converted to residential housing as Princess Park Manor and Friern Village. The hospital was built as the Second Middlesex County Asylum and was in operation from 1851 to 1993. After the County of London was created in 1889 it continued to serve much of Middlesex and of the newer county, London. During much of this time its smaller prototype Hanwell Asylum also operated.At its height, Colney Hatch was home to 2,500 mental patients and had the longest corridor in Britain (It would take a visitor more than two hours to walk the wards). For much of the 20th century, its name was synonymous among Londoners with any mental institution. The asylum with its surrounding fields, gardens and recreation grounds adjoined Friern Barnet Road and is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1868–1883, which labels the nascent settlement of New Southgate under a popular developers' name Colney Hatch Park. Today that larger community is the core area of New Southgate in the London Borough of Enfield. The map shows the large asylum which resembled closely the new settlement in size. Friern Barnet is today used fairly interchangeably with New Southgate for the area west of the Great Northern Railway – a short path from the asylum led to the station built to serve it, New Southgate railway station, which moved a short distance and remains. The station had five earlier names: the changes demonstrate a gradual erasure of the small place name "Colney Hatch" from the public psyche and in general public use. Colney Hatch was the southern hamlet, centred on a crossroads, of the medieval parish of Friern Barnet which stretched 3 miles (4.8 km) north north-west and was half as wide as long. The very rural parish until the late 19th century had one other main population centre, equally a hamlet, Whetstone.