Before 1815 most of the houses in what became New Southgate lay in either Hertfordshire or Edmonton. This was apart from Betstile House, which stood on the corner of Friern Barnet Road and Oakleigh Road. By 1846 others stood north of the road, on the site of the former Friern great park. The former Friern Little Park in Oakleigh Road had been divided into plots with cottages. Since the mid 19th century, the small settlement of Betstile has been better known as New Southgate.
New Southgate is now situated across three current-day London Boroughs – Barnet, Enfield, and a northern corner of Haringey. It has become a residential suburb which merges into Bounds Green. The area’s first church, established in 1873, adopted the newer name, New Southgate, over the older hamlet name, Colney Hatch.
This transition in nomenclature reflects a societal shift and the social stigma associated with a significant residential institution, specifically the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, built in 1851. The asylum served Middlesex and continued to cater to a considerable portion of London even after the establishment of the London County Council in 1889. The mental health hospital eventually closed its doors in 1993, leading to the redevelopment of the site into two housing estates: Princess Park Manor and Friern Village in New Southgate.
The railway station was built in 1851 as Colney Hatch & New Southgate or Colney Hatch changed its name five times such as from New Southgate for Colney Hatch to New Southgate and Friern Barnet on 1 May 1923; its current name dates to 1971.
