The Burroughs

The Burroughs is a place in Hendon, and a civic district of London Borough of Barnet. It is 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 ordnance survey map 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 was so-called from 1736, and was rebuilt in 1932. Here, the 'leet courts', based on feudal tradition, were held as late as 1916, to ensure the rights of the Lord of the Manor to control the increasingly emancipated peasantry, to punish transgressors, and to 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:

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

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

In this same period, three religious institutions were established. The first was a Methodist chapel in 1827, which was reached by the footpath of the same name. The second was a Roman Catholic chapel, later called Our Lady of Dolours (1863, remodelled 1927). There were a handful of shops nearby by the 1880s. The modern Methodist chapel, designed by Welch & Lander, was built in 1937.

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