Friern Barnet is an area within the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburban development situated north of Charing Cross. The centre of Friern Barnet is formed by the busy intersection of Colney Hatch Lane (which runs north-south), Woodhouse Road (taking west-bound traffic towards North Finchley) and Friern Barnet Road (leading east towards New Southgate).HistoryFriern Barnet was an ancient parish in the Finsbury division of Ossulstone hundred, in the county of Middlesex.The area was originally considered to be part of Barnet, most of which was in Hertfordshire. By the thirteenth century the Middlesex section of Barnet was known as "Little Barnet", before becoming "Frerenbarnet" and then "Friern Barnet" (in the past also sometimes spelt in other ways, such as "Fryern Barnett"). The "Friern" part of the parish's name derives from the French for "brother", and refers to the medieval lordship of the Brotherhood or Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.Friern Barnet was mainly rural until the nineteenth century. The opening of Colney Hatch pauper lunatic asylum in 1851, and of railway stations on the Great Northern and Metropolitan Railways, also in the middle of the nineteenth century, began its development as an outer London suburb. This process was accelerated by the arrival of electric trams in 1909.