The local sewerage system for the area had several vertical hollow vent pipes erected to a height of about thirty feet, almost certainly all provided by the Urban District Council and many bear its name. Today these are known as ‘stink pipes’, though I prefer to refer to them by their earlier more appropriate and slightly less unpleasant name of sewer vent pipes. They are often mistaken for lampposts until one looks up and sees no lamp, and indeed a few contemporary photographs show lampposts with a similar design of column.

In some areas of London these pipes are abundant though in others they are completely absent. Many examples of these can still be seen in what was Friern Barnet. A large number of them have been cut down, often to only about half their former height. This is probably because the iron from which they were made had deteriorated to the point where they were unsafe or beyond practical maintenance.

Two different manufacturers put their names on the castings in Friern Barnet and a few have no maker’s name at all. The photograph of each one is appended with the date taken and the name of the maker.

The maker’s name is indicated for each pipe on the map along with the date of the photograph.

The map shows all Sewer vent pipes I know of and I have numbered them clockwise around the area, purely for my own reference purposes.