Highgate Cemetery. 31.11.14.

  As today is Halloween, I thought I would show you some pictures of what is said to be the most haunted graveyard in the UK. In fact Bram Stoker is said to have been inspired by it when writing Dracula. Several cult horror films were set here with titles like ‘Tales from the Crypt’. In 1975 the owners, United Cemeteries closed the doors and abandoned the cemetery after the place had suffered years of neglect and vandalism. The place had become notorious in the 1970s after tales of a Vampire captured the imagination of the gullible. Graves were vandalised and desecrated and the occupants subjected to all sorts of indignities. The story was that King Vampire of the Undead had arrived here in a coffin from his native Wallachia in Romania. ( The fact that this story was so lamentably lacking in inventiveness and originality didn’t seem to bother people very much.) By a strange irony instead of the dead preying on the living, you now had the living preying on the dead.

Highgate cemetery, North London, was opened in 1839 and was the second of a series of seven cemeteries, now known as ‘The Magnificent Seven’ that were opened outside London and managed by private enterprise in the nineteenth century. London had become chronically overcrowded for the living, and even more so for the dead, who were crammed into tiny churchyards that had long been unable to contain them properly. The result was epidemics, the most appalling smells, and the new phenomenon of body snatchers stealing corpses for students of anatomy. When the new cemeteries opened, wealthy Victorians were able to indulge their love of wealth-display and ostentation beyond the grave. Highgate was safely walled in with gates that locked and a lodge to protect the dead. People spent vast sums of money on Gothic tombs or family vaults. The Victorian death cult gained momentum. Imagery was classical and everything Egyptian was fashionable. The impressive Egyptian Avenue is awe-inspiring.

The Egyptian avenue leads to a circle of vaults and catacombs which has an ancient Cedar of Lebanon in the centre.
This venerable tree was in the garden of Ashurst House. The house had been demolished in 1830.There is a terrace of catacombs built into the hillside where the terrace of Ashurst House used to be. It commanded fine views of London.
The cemetery became a favourite spot for outings. It had beautiful trees, carefully maintained flower beds, clean air and wonderful views.
The most magnificent mausoleum of all was built by Julius Beer. He was a German Jew who had come to England and converted to the Church of England. He made a fortune on the stock exchange. He was also a newspaper magnate. This was in an age when people were xenophobic, anti-semitic and hated new money. This amazing building cost £5000 to build, which is nearly 3 million in today’s money. The design was based on the Mausoleum of Harlicarnassus which was one of the wonders of the Ancient World. The doors are of brass. Inside is a sculpture of his small daughter, Ada who had died at the age of 7, being lifted up by an angel. The building dominates the top of the cemetery and would have blocked the view of the city which sightseers came to enjoy. So he had the last laugh over those who had looked down on him.

It is fascinating looking at the sort of imagery used on the tombs. There are some crosses but they were not very popular as they were considered Popish.

Draped funerary urns were considered tasteful symbols of grief and mourning and there are many of these. I’m not quite sure where and why this fashion for draped urns came about. It couldn’t be anything to do with urns containing ashes because cremation wasn’t practised at this time.

Broken columns represented a life cut short.

A weeping woman was a frequent motif.

As you would expect, there are of course, plenty of angels. Actually, I  decided to do this Halloween post after seeing the beautiful angels on Debra’s lovely blog: Underthepecanleaves  Debra was  in a cemetery on a quest to find a famous Pecan tree and found angels instead. My favourite angel in Highgate cemetery is sleeping peacefully on a bed. This is a very unusual pose for angels on tombs. It is the grave of Mary Nichols  who died in 1909. Apparently, until the 1980s  she was completely covered by ivy.

Animals were often shown on tombs. This little horse is on the tomb of Jack Acheler who was Queen Victoria’s horse slaughterer. No wonder the little horse looks so dejected.

I love the beautiful mastiff hound on the tomb of prize fighter, Thomas Sayers. He was the British champion of bare-knuckle boxing and the match where he won his championship went on for four hours. He was a national hero and 10,000 people came to his funeral. His beautiful dog, Lion led the cortege.

The lion in the next photo was called Nero. He belonged to George Wombwell who had the largest travelling menagerie in the country. He started his career by showing two boa constrictors for a penny a look.
There are many famous people buried here but the one with the most bizarre story is that of Lizzie Sidall who was the auburn haired muse of the Pre-Raphaelites. She was the model for Millais in his famous painting of Ophelia.
She actually caught pneumonia after posing in a cold bath for hours at a time.
In the end she died of a laudanum overdose. Her husband, the poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was so overcome with grief at her death that he placed a journal with his unpublished poems under her red hair in her coffin. It was a gesture that he came to regret and seven years later he applied for permission to have her coffin exhumed so that he could retrieve his poems. We are told that her hair had carried on growing and filled the coffin. The photograph shows the family grave where all the Rossetti family is interred.

Highgate cemetery is vast and there are 170,000 people buried in 53000 graves. The older part, I have just been describing is the West Cemetery and you can only visit it as part of a guided tour. You have to prebook this as they get very busy. The ticket includes a visit to the East Cemetery across the road, which was opened in 1860. If you just want to visit this newer part you do not need to book in advance and you can wander round by yourself. The most famous grave here is that of Karl Marx which has a very impressive monument.

Highgate cemetery is now cared for by The Friends of Highgate Cemetery who look after it in a way that wild life is encouraged and the paths are kept clear. Sycamore and ash seedlings which break up the graves are removed but ivy meanders round the monuments and there are plenty of other trees and wild flowers. The Wildlife Trust monitors the bat population and recently they discovered a rare, giant Orb Weaver spider, Meta bourneti which lives in the total darkness of the vaults of the Egyptian avenue. Altogether they have found 227 previously unrecorded species of insects here. These old cemeteries round London are valuable nature reserves, as well as being fascinating places to visit. I am going to look at the first one to be established, Kensal Green next time I go to London.