Friends of the Barnet Countryside Centre

We are the Association of the Friends of Barnet Countryside Centre at the Denis Bland Nature Reserve, Byng Road, Barnet, EN5 4NP, a 7.5 acre Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation. We are a registered charity and our charity number is 1033774.

The Donate button at the top of every page is a link from our website to BT MyDonate and will enable you to securely make a one-off donation, renew your membership or join as a new member. Membership is £5 individual, £10 family and £75 corporate annually from 1 July.

Environmental education is not a statutory service and there is no local authority funding. However, it is important that environmental education and its expanding remit into issues of sustainability are available for our young people and the local community. The Friends of Barnet Countryside Centre provides events for the local community and activities for schools in order to educate and inspire a lasting interest in and appreciation of the natural world. At the moment, the Barnet Countryside Centre is not open to the public except for school visits and community events.

Since 2006 the Friends of Barnet Countryside Centre have been facilitating school visits, with over 1000 pupils in the 2011-2012 academic year. Click on School Visits for more information or if you would like to bring your class. You can also see comments from teachers who have brought their classes.

We have just published our March 2013 Schools Newsletter. Please click on March 2013 Schools Newsletter to view the newsletter or save it to your computer.

Thank you to all who helped with our Spring Event. The preparation, the distribution of flyers, bakers of cakes (so delicious!) and helping at the very chilly and wet event itself all went off extremely well. Amazingly, we did get a steady trickle of local folks and raised some funds on refreshments and on the seed exchange stall. Advice on allotments and composting was well received and Dr Bike was kept busy in his tent outside. Many thanks to everyone!

Our next two events are:

  1. On Saturday 22nd June we are holding an Open Afternoon from 2 to 5 at the Barnet Countryside Centre as part of the High Barnet Summer Festival. There will be refreshments, stalls from local organisations, a plant sale, children’s activities and nature trails.
  2. On Saturday 29th June from 6.30 there will be a sizzling night of questions at our Summer Quiz Night at Pennefather Hall, Christ Church, St Albans Road, Barnet EN5 4LA. Ploughman's supper provided. Bring your own drinks. £10 per head. Tables of 8. Book your places by getting in touch with Linda Perry, telephone 020 8441 5306 or email her on linda.perry25@gmail.com.

Our Chair, Dick Elms, has just penned our Spring 2013 Newsletter. Please click on Spring 2013 Newsletter to view it or save it to your computer.

On Saturday 27 October 2012, thirty-three people gave their all to Make a Meadow to make it an outstanding success. To read more about it and see some nice pictures of the day, go to Volunteering.

We run working parties on the first Sunday of each month to manage and enhance the ecological and educational value of the nature reserve. The next working party is on Sunday 7th July 2013, from 10 to 12.30, with a break for refreshments at about 11.15.

In addition to our monthly working parties, there are volunteer afternoons every Monday afternoon except bank holidays, from 1.30 to 4, with a break for a cuppa. These offer the chance to do work inside or outside.

The June 2013 edition of our monthly "Volunteering - Keeping in Touch" is now available to view or download. Click Volunteering - Keeping in Touch then use the resulting menu to open or save the document to your computer.

Wildabout Nature Club
Our Community Matters grant from Waitrose Barnet has enabled us to fund an interesting programme of visits and BCC based led activities this year.

The next Wildabout Nature Club event this summer 2013 will be from 2 to 4 on Saturday 6th July.
For more details of the Wildabout Nature Club click on Wildabout Nature Club.

Some Pictures from the BioBlitz

The pictures below are clickable: they are tiny versions of their originals which you can see by clicking on them. It's only by looking at the originals that you will see them in their full glory. Each full size picture will open in a new window when you click one of these little pictures, but first let your mouse loiter over each image to read about it.

For some more photos of the nature reserve, click on Habitats

We do not allow unaccompanied children on the site, but of course we are delighted to see children as long as they are supervised by adults. Because it is a nature reserve please do not bring a dog onto the site unless it is a guide dog for the blind.

If you want to know how to get here, click on how to get here.

Please click on Acknowledgements for details of our sponsors and the help given to us by other organisations and people.

Please click on Contact Us for information on how to get in touch with us.

Since May 2008 the Friends has worked in collaboration with London Wildlife Trust.

We are a member of the The Conservation Volunteers and a member of CommUNITY Barnet.

The Noah's Ark Hospice and the Nature Reserve
The Noah's Ark planning application was submitted in October 2011 and subsequent objections, approvals and comments from interested parties were received by the London Borough of Barnet (LBB). The LBB Planning Meeting was held on 03 February 2012 and the decision was taken to pass the application subject to certain conditions. With the support of the LBB, we are now entering into a period of negotiation with Noah’s Ark concerning the terms of the sublease between them and London Wildlife Trust in collaboration with FoBCC.