Coordinates: 51°34′01″N 0°08′49″W / 51.567°N 0.147°W
Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in Highgate, London, England. It is designated Grade II* on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.[1]
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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.
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.
The Highgate Cemetery is well known for its so-called occult past, being the site of the alleged 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[2].
Interments
Although its most famous occupant in the east cemetery is probably Karl Marx (whose tomb's attempted bombing in 1970[3] is still recalled by some Highgate residents), there are many other prominent figures, Victorian and otherwise, buried at Highgate Cemetery. Interments include:
- Claudia Jones, black Communist and fighter for social justice
- Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other novels
- Edward Hodges Baily, sculptor
- Farzad Bazoft, journalist, executed by Saddam Hussein's regime
- Jacob Bronowski, scientist, creator of the television series The Ascent of Man
- Robert William Buss, artist and illustrator
- Patrick Caulfield, painter and printmaker known for his pop art canvasses
- Robert Caesar Childers, oriental scholar and writer
- Lucy Clifford, British novelist and journalist, the wife of William Kingdon Clifford
- William Kingdon Clifford, mathematician and philosopher
- John Singleton Copley, Lord Chancellor and son of the American artist
- Sir Charles Cowper, Premier of NSW, Australia (1857–1859)
- Charles Cruft, founder of Crufts dog show
- John Dickens and Elizabeth Dickens, parents of Charles 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.
- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist
- Claire Epstein, doctor
- Michael Faraday, physicist
- Paul Foot, campaigning journalist
- William Friese-Greene, cinema pioneer. The memorial is credited to Edwin Lutyens
- Stella Gibbons, novelist
- Lou Gish, actress, daughter of Sheila Gish
- Sheila Gish, actress
- Robert Grant VC. soldier and police constable
- Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness and other novels
- Mansoor Hekmat, Communist leader and founder of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and Worker-Communist Party of Iraq
- James Holman, sightless 19th-century adventurer known as "the Blind Traveller"
- George Henry Lewes, critic
- Alexander Litvinenko, Russian dissident turned critic, murdered by poisoning in London
- Charles Lucy, artist
- Anna Mahler, sculpturess
- Karl Marx, father of Marxist philosophy, the basis of Communism
- Frank Matcham, theatre architect
- Carl Mayer, Austrian-German screenwriter of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Sunrise
- Ralph Miliband, left wing political theorist, father of David Miliband and Ed Miliband
- Henry Moore, (1841–93), marine painter
- Dachine Rainer, poet and anarchist
- Sir Ralph Richardson (1902–83), actor
- 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
- Raphael Samuel, historian
- Thomas Sayers, Victorian pugilist
- Elizabeth Siddal, wife and model of artist/poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- 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
- Arthur Waley, translator and oriental scholar
- Max Wall, comedian and entertainer
- George Wombwell, menagerie exhibitor
- Mrs Henry Wood, author
- Adam Worth, criminal and possible inspiration for Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarty
- Patrick Wymark, actor
Fictional references
- The first chapter of the third Young Bond novel by Charlie Higson features the kidnapping of an Eton College professor in the cemetery grounds.
- 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 5th level of Nightmare Creatures game.
- Fred Vargas´s novel A Dubious Place (Un lieu incertain) starts in Highgate Cemetery
- Copeland Family empty tombs including names conrad, colbie, callum and carson
- Though not directly mentioned until the acknowledgments, it was the inspiration for the setting of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book
- Audrey Niffenegger's forthcoming book, Her Fearful Symmetry, is set in and around Highgate Cemetery
Media link
The BBC 1 Programme The One Show visited and toured the cemetery during November 2007.
Gallery
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See also
References
External links
- Friends of Highgate Cemetery
- The Sexton's Tales — Highgate Cemetery
- Short article on Highgate Cemetery as filming location for Hammer horror, includes stills
- Site detailing cemeteries of London
- Recent photos and information on both the Eastern and Western sides of Highgate Cemetery
- Photos from the Western side of Highgate Cemetery
- Photos of Elizabeth Siddal's grave at Highgate Cemetery. This area of the cemetery is not currently open to visitors.
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