St Mary the Virgin, East Barnet

St Mary the Virgin, East Barnet
St Mary the Virgin, East Barnet from the rear
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Website	Official website
Architecture
Heritage designation	Grade II*
Administration
Parish	East Barnet
Deanery	Barnet
Archdeaconry	Hertford
Diocese	St Albans
Clergy
Rector	James Mustard

St Mary the Virgin is the Church of England parish church for East Barnet within the Diocese of St Albans. It is located on Church Hill.

The church was originally constructed in 1080, as a small chapel on the hill. It was dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. The Abbot of St Albans consecrated it and he became both Patron and Rector until the Reformation. After the Reformation, the church's rector was appointed by the reigning monarch - a practise which continues to this day.

The first chapel had thick walls made of compressed rubble, lime and plaster with stone around the openings. The windows had no glass. Much of the north wall is from that time. The frame of the door on the south side is probably also from that same period. The chapel might have had an apse.

The church on Chipping Barnet hill was probably founded in the middle of the 13th century, almost certainly as a chapel-at-ease to that of St Mary at East Barnet. It is certain that it had been built by Michaelmas 1276 because a court roll entry refers to ‘an obstruction on the road leading to the church of Barnet and the market’.

Nevertheless, Chipping Barnet would not become a separate parish for another 600 years. At St Mary’s, glass had been put in the windows by the 13th century and some of it is still there today. The apse was replaced in the 1400s with a larger chancel and a porch would have been constructed to protect the door.

In 1794 a wooden turret was erected on the church. It contained three small bells. By the 18th century the roof space of the church was being used as a vestry and store so a dormer window was knocked through above the porch.

Most of the present church dates from the 19th century, including a yellow brick Neo-Norman tower of 1828. A churchwarden in 1805 decided to raise the walls by four feet and create a new roof over the old. A new window was installed and later the turret was replaced by an octagonal belfry. The belfry stayed only for eleven years until 1828 when the tower was built. It was separated from the church by the width of the old porch. It was reported at the time,

“This unpleasant construction absorbed, it is believed, the larger part of subscriptions destined to the general improvement of the edifice.”