Your afternoon project......

[samesizedfeet]

My William Linkson moved out to Barnet in 1874 after the death of his father Robert.

I've not found his Will yet but Robert's wife Margaret was a fairly well off heiress and he was an accountant (gentleman in later life)

Following his death most of his surviving children seemed to go up a notch, the unmarried women becoming "independent" and buying property and the husbands of the other daughters becoming business owners whereas before they were employees, albeit pretty high up in the workforce.

William took his small family out to Barnet and bought a property for himself and one for his father in law - and also set father in law up in a carpentry business.
Williams house was a new build "cottage" over several floors with basement quarters and several bedrooms. At the time he only had two children so he didn't buy something that big out of necessity but because he could.

A connection from that bit of the family says they still owned both properties well into the 1950s as she grew up in one as did her mother.

So, yes, I've always considered a move to the Barnet area to be a step up in status

[Olde Crone Holden]

It was shabby-posh by the time I moved there in the 60s, but had come down from a great height - large houses and villas, tree-lined roads, three parks, etc. The "top end" of Friern Barnet was very popular with wealthy Jewish families, I remember, many of whom had been there for three of four generations.

It would certainly have been a desirable place to live in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and Colney Hatch was considered "the countryside" lol, as it had several small farms. The Asylum, or Colony, as it was more properly known, ran a hugely profitable farm there.

OC