Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery East (2010)
Details
Year established	1839
Location	Highgate, London
Country	England
Size	15 hectares (37 acres)
Number of graves	53,000+
Number of interments	170,000
Website	highgate-cemetery.org

Unknown grave, Highgate Cemetery

Circle of Lebanon, West Cemetery

Entrance to the Egyptian Avenue, West Cemetery

Karl Marx grave, East Cemetery

Grave of William Friese-Greene by Lutyens, East Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in north London, England. It is designated Grade I on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is divided into two parts, named the East and West cemetery. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves at Highgate Cemetery.

Location

The cemetery is located on both sides of Swain's Lane in Highgate, N6, next to Waterlow Park. The Main Gate is located just north of Oakshott Avenue. The cemetery is in the London Boroughs of Camden, Haringey and Islington.

History and setting

The cemetery in its original form – the northwestern wooded area – opened in 1839, as part of a plan to provide seven large, modern cemeteries (known as the "Magnificent Seven") around the outside of London. The inner-city cemeteries, mostly the graveyards attached to individual churches, had long been unable to cope with the number of burials and were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the dead. The initial design was by architect and entrepreneur Stephen Geary.

On Monday 20 May 1839, The Highgate cemetery was dedicated to St. James by the Right Reverend Charles Blomfield, Lord Bishop of London. 15 acres were consecrated for the use of the Church of England and 2 acres set aside for dissenters. Rights of burial were sold for either limited period or in perpetuity. The first burial on 26 May was Elizabeth Jackson of Little Windmill Street, Soho.

Highgate, like the others, soon became a fashionable place for burials and was much admired and visited. The Victorian attitude to death and its presentation led to the creation of a wealth of Gothic tombs and buildings. It occupies a spectacular south-facing hillside site slightly downhill from the top of the hill of Highgate itself, next to Waterlow Park. In 1854 the area to the east of the original area across Swains Lane was bought to form the eastern part of the cemetery. This part is still used today for burials, as is the western part. Most of the open unforested area in the new addition still has fairly few graves on it.

The cemetery's grounds are full of trees, shrubbery and wild flowers; all of which have been planted and grown without human influence. The grounds are a haven for birds and small animals such as foxes. The Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon (topped by a huge Cedar of Lebanon) feature tombs, vaults and winding paths dug into hillsides. For its protection, the oldest section, which holds an impressive collection of Victorian mausoleums and gravestones, plus elaborately carved tombs, allows admission only in tour groups. The newer eastern section, which contains a mix of Victorian and modern statuary, can be toured unescorted.

The tomb of Karl Marx, the Egyptian Avenue and the Columbarium are Grade I listed buildings.

The nearest transport link to the cemetery is Archway tube station.

Highgate Cemetery was featured in the popular media from the 1960s to the late 1980s for its so-called occult past, particularly as being the alleged site of the "Highgate Vampire".

Friends of Highgate Cemetery

The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust was set up in 1975 and acquired the freehold of both East and West Cemeteries by 1981, since when they have had responsibility for the maintenance of the location. In 1984 they published Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla by John Gay.

Interments

The most famous occupant in the East cemetery is probably Karl Marx (whose tomb's attempted bombings on 2 September 1965 and in 1970 are still recalled by some Highgate residents), and it is celebrated by a memorial (he was buried nearby).

There are many other prominent figures, Victorian and otherwise, buried at Highgate Cemetery. Most of the historically notable figures lie in the Western part. Tours of the most famous graves are available, but due to vandalism and souvenir hunters visitors are no longer allowed to explore unaccompanied, unless they have a personal connection with the cemetery and thus hold a pass.

Notable gravesites

East Cemetery

• Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other novels
• Farzad Bazoft, journalist, executed by Saddam Hussein's regime
• Jeremy Beadle, television presenter - {Cremated}
• Patrick Caulfield, painter and printmaker known for his pop art canvasses
• Lucy Lane Clifford, British novelist and journalist, the wife of William Kingdon Clifford
• William Kingdon Clifford, mathematician and philosopher, husband of Lucy Lane Clifford
• George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans — the name on the grave is Mary Ann Cross), novelist, common law wife of George Henry Lewes and buried next to him
• Paul Foot, campaigning journalist and nephew of former Labour Party leader Michael Foot
• Lou Gish, actress, daughter of Sheila Gish
• Sheila Gish, actress
• Robert Grant VC. Soldier and police constable
• George Jacob Holyoake (Midland Social Reformer and founder of the Cooperative Movement)
• Claudia Jones, black Communist and fighter for social justice
• William Friese-Greene, cinema pioneer. The memorial is credited to Edwin Lutyens
• Mansoor Hekmat, Communist leader and founder of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and Worker-Communist Party of Iraq
• George Henry Lewes, English philosopher and critic, common law husband of George Eliot and buried next to her.
• Anna Mahler, sculptress and daughter of Gustav Mahler and Alma Schindler
• Karl Marx, philosopher, historian, sociologist, and economist
• Frank Matcham, theatre architect
• Carl Mayer, Austrian-German screenwriter of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Sunrise
• Malcolm McLaren, punk impresario / original manager of the Sex Pistols
• Sir Ralph Richardson, actor
• Ralph Miliband, left wing political theorist, father of David Miliband and Ed Miliband
• Dachine Rainer, poet and anarchist
• Sir Donald Alexander Smith, Canadian railway financier and diplomat
• Herbert Spencer, evolutionary biologist and laissez-faire economic philosopher
• Sir Leslie Stephen, critic, first editor of the DNB, father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell
• Feliks Topolski, Polish-born British expressionist painter
• Max Wall, comedian and entertainer
• Opal Whiteley, American writer
• Edward Richard Woodham, survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade and Chairman of the committee for the 21st anniversary celebration of the charge at Alexandra Palace in October 1875

West Cemetery

• Jane Arden, Welsh-born film director, actor, screenwriter, playwright, songwriter, and poet.
• Edward Hodges Baily, sculptor
• Beryl Bainbridge, author
• George Samuel Bentley, printer & publisher of the London Standard Newspaper 1879-1890
• Julius Beer, owner of The Observer and his 8 year old daughter, who the mausoleum was originally created for. This is the largest structure on site and has recently been restored to close to its original splendor
• Jacob Bronowski, scientist, creator of the television series The Ascent of Man
• Robert Caesar Childers, oriental scholar and writer
• Edmund Thomas Chipp, organist and composer
• John Singleton Copley, Lord Chancellor and son of the American artist
• Sir Charles Cowper, Premier of NSW, Australia
• The family vault of Robert Monach and WH Crossland. In this vault are buried William Henry Crossland's parents-in-law (the Monachs), his brother, his wife, his mistress, his daughter and eldest son, though not Crossland himself
• Charles Cruft, founder of Crufts dog show
• David Devant, theatrical magician
• Alfred Lamert Dickens, the younger brother of Charles Dickens
• Catherine Dickens, wife of Charles Dickens
• John Dickens and Elizabeth Dickens, parents of Charles Dickens and models for Micawber and Mrs Nickleby
• The Druce family vault, one of whose members was (falsely) alleged to have been the 5th Duke of Portland.
• Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist
• Lucian Freud, British painter
• John Galsworthy, author and Nobel Prize winner (he was cremated and his ashes scattered, memorial only)
• Stella Gibbons, novelist
• Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness and other novels
• James Holman, blind 19th-century adventurer known as "the Blind Traveller"
• Alexander Litvinenko, Russian dissident turned critic, murdered by poisoning in London
• Christina Rossetti, poet
• Frances Polidori Rossetti, mother of Dante Gabriel, Christina and William Michael Rossetti
• William Michael Rossetti, co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• Thomas Sayers, Victorian pugilist
• Elizabeth Siddal, wife and model of artist/poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• Jean Simmons, British actress
• Alfred Stevens, sculptor, painter, and designer
• Arthur Waley, translator and oriental scholar
• George Wombwell, menagerie exhibitor
• Mrs Henry Wood, author
• Adam Worth, criminal mastermind and philanthropist. Possible inspiration for Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarty
• Patrick Wymark, actor

Fictional references

• In Bram Stoker's gothic novel Dracula, the Count's young victim, Lucy Westenra, is buried in "Kingstead Cemetery" (a fictionalised Highgate), where she later preys on young children as a vampire.
• The first chapter of the third Young Bond novel by Charlie Higson features the kidnapping of an Eton College professor in the cemetery grounds.
• The BBC TV episode, 'Count Dracula (1977)' for the series 'Great Performances' was filmed in Highgate's West cemetery. It was directed by Philip Saville and featured Louis Jourdan as Count Dracula.
• In the BBC TV Series Porridge, Fletcher claims that his eldest daughter, Ingrid, was conceived on Karl Marx's tomb.
• Herbert Smith is shadowed through Highgate Cemetery in Visibility, a murder/espionage/thriller by Boris Starling.
• Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels is set in and around Highgate Cemetery.
• Highgate Cemetery is the fifth level of the Nightmare Creatures game.
• Fred Vargas´s novel Un lieu incertain (English title: An Uncertain Place) starts in Highgate Cemetery.
• Barbara Hambly's vampire novel, Those Who Hunt The Night, has the main characters visiting Highgate at one point to examine the remains of a vampire who had taken over an abandoned tomb.
• Copeland Family empty tombs including names Conrad, Colbie, Callum, Craft, Cullen, Chassidy, Chalie and Carson.
• Though not directly mentioned until the acknowledgements, it was the inspiration for the setting of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.
• Audrey Niffenegger's book Her Fearful Symmetry is set in and around Highgate Cemetery, and she acted as a tour guide there while researching the book.
• In the story "The Berkenheim", soon to be made into a feature film, the opening and closing scenes are at Highgate Cemetery.
• In Morgan Delt and his mum visit the grave of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery.
• Part of a scene from the 2009 film Dorian Gray is filmed in the Circle of Lebanon
• The lead characters in Mike Leigh's High Hopes (1988) visit Highgate Cemetery to pay homage to Karl Marx.
• In Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus, Mme. Ana Padva's studio is situated near Highgate Cemetery.

Media link

The BBC 1 Programme The One Show visited and toured the cemetery during November 2007.

Gallery

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  Carl Rosa grave

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  Highgate Cemetery East (2010)

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  The tomb of Tom Sayers

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  The grave of Patrick Caulfield, RA

Visiting

In 2010 the West Cemetery can only be visited as a guided tour (for which a small fee is asked). The East Cemetery can be visited after paying a small entrance fee.

See also

• Poets' Graves

External links

• Friends of Highgate Cemetery
• Site detailing cemeteries of London