Potters Bar, Middlesex : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Potters Bar. You may be able to find further references to Potters Bar in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Potters Bar ecclesiastical district and village with railway station Bartholomew
POTTERS-BAR a village and a chapelry Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Potters Bar within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Thomas Pennant Enfield to London 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
South Mimms 3 3
Bentley Heath 0 2
Monken Hadley 8 3
Northaw 1 2
North Mimms 3 3
Barnet 25 6
Trent 0 3
New Barnet 0 1
Ridge 0 2
East Barnet 0 3
Newgate Street 0 1
Arkley 0 1
Clay Hill 0 1
Shenley 0 2
Ponsbourne 0 1
Goffs Oak 0 1
Totteridge 1 2
Whetstone 3 2
Enfield Chase 2 1
Colney Heath 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Potters Bar. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
POTTERS BAR John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.