High Road, N20
The Griffin, Whetstone
High Road Whetstone is otherwise known as the Great North Road.

Whetstone hamlet, recorded in 1398, grew up along the Great North Road. There was only a narrow band of arable between the road and Dollis brook, probably too little to support the houses which by c. 1677 stood close together on both sides of the Great North Road. Some of Whetstone’s inhabitants followed occupations based on the abundant woodland, as charcoal-burners, tanners, or sawyers. Others catered for travellers, as carters, stable-keepers, brewers, and innkeepers.

There were many inns. The George, one of the ancient freehold tenements and so named by 1474, was still an inn in 1692 but had been demolished by 1761.

Other inns included the King’s Arms (c. 1683-1728), and the Mare or Black Horse, built on the waste by Robert Odell in 1655 and used as an inn by 1713; it had been converted into three houses by 1741 but one was still licensed in 1779. The Windmill, a public house by 1723, may have occupied either the windmill built in the 17th century by Basings ponds west of the Great North Road or a nearby house. It was called the Windmill and Fighting Cocks by 1751 and the Swan or Swan with Two Necks by 1765.

A second Swan, also called the Swan with Two Necks by 1790, existed by 1731 just north of the lane to which it gave its name. The Bull and Butcher, licensed in 1765 and probably the Butcher and Conjuror which was licensed in 1731, stood north of the junction with Totteridge Lane. Other public houses included the Cock in the Tree (before 1760) and, in Coleharbour, the White Horse (before 1790) and the Dog or Queen’s Head (before 1794).

There were houses at Woodside by 1365. Woodside House, so named in 1699, may have been the medieval Runtings. By 1754 houses along the edge of the common at Woodside formed a distinct hamlet.

The Great North Road brought beggars on their way to and from London, many of whom died of the plague at Whetstone during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Villagers threatened to fire on men journeying from London in the plague of 1665 and in 1754 they drove off a surveyor and his labourers with pitchforks. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Whetstone was a centre of dissent but in the mid 19th century it was noted for drunkenness and brawling.

Inhabitants in 1841 included 2 clergymen, 3 teachers, 4 solicitors, 2 surgeons, and some tradesmen and craftsmen. Of the 226 people with occupations stated, 100 were labourers and 39 were female servants. There were 255 labourers by 1851, many of them lodgers in cottages that were probably overcrowded.

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