The name derives from a toll gate once operated by somebody named Potter. The Great North Road, the original main road route from London to the north of England, passed through Potters Bar High Street - first numbered as the A1, later the A1000. The original "Potters Bar" toll gate is said to have been at what is now the Green Man pub. The A1 was built as a major (what was then called "arterial") road, and a crossroads at Bignells Corner linked the Barnet - St Albans Road with the A1. Potters Bar is now also served by junction 24 of the M25.
Potters Bar station is the highest on the railway line between London's Kings Cross station and York, and the town's name entered national headlines as the site of a rail disaster that killed 7 people and injured 76 in 2002.
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