Highgate Cemetery

About a year ago I visited Brompton Cemetery, and since then I have been wanting to visit Highgate Cemetery. The opportunity arose this weekend and I headed north. I arrived jolly early (as advised) abd waited for 45 minutes in the rain reading a rapidly sodden Sunday telegraph... at 11am theiron gates swung open (a little like Willy Wonka's fatory gates I imagine) and the tour party was admitted. That would be me then. A complete fluke of time and weather meant that I was the only visitor at that time... what a treat.

If you want to visit the Cemetery you should visit their website first



Highgate cemetry is the final resting place of about 169,000 Londoners. it opened in 1839 to provide burial space for Londoners who could no longr find room in the churchyards. In the mid twentieth century the graveyard fell into disrepair as the numbers of burials (and the income with them) dwindled. In the 1970s the land was purchased by a property company and it seemed as though the graveyeard would be lost. Enter the friends of highgate cemetery, who have worked tirelessly to save the cemetery and also to restore it to some of it's former glory. nowadays the general public are allowed in for an hour's tour, and you enter into a complete magical mystery garden.











The lebanon circle is at the highest point of Highgate Cemetery and is the most grand part of the Cemetery....



This Egyptian gateway leads to the lebanon Circle . . . It was designed as a 'marketing tool' for the Cemetery.. and certainly appealed to the Victorian love of mourning!





Accross the road from the Western cemetery is the (would you believe) East Cemetery and probably 50% of the visitors there come to see this grave... Karl Marx and his wife must be the most visited inhabitants.. and I couldn't leave without paying my respects