Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery

Most people think it strange when I say that Highgate Cemetery is an afternoon out worth doing. After all it is just a graveyard isn't it?!

The cemetery was opened in 1839 and currently has over 150,000 people buried in over 50,000 graves. It is divided into two parts - the older West Cemetery and the newer East cemetery. In its Victorian heyday up to 29 gardeners were employed to keep the grounds neat. However, as it filled up and the money dried up the cemetery became overgrown and in disrepair. In the 1970s the Friends of Highgate Cemetery became involved and as volunteers, preserved the cemetery and opened it for visitors. Their policy is not one of restoration but of preservation and conservation or, as my guide told me, “managed neglect”!

Tours run during the week at 2pm and at weekends on the hour from 10-4pm in the summer and up to 3pm in the winter and cost £5.00. It is worth getting there up to 30 minutes in advance as they will only take 12-15 people per tour. Each tour lasts 55 minutes. Do not be put off by the rottweiler in the skirt and cardigan coming out of the gates. Although she may remind you of the rules often, she was instrumental in starting up the Friends of Highgate Cemetery started and is the reason you are able to visit it. Key rules to remember are no bare shoulders, no eating, drinking and smoking. The ground is uneven and there is a slight incline which should not bother most people, but could be difficult for the elderly.

Our guide was called Alex, a knowledgeable American chap who took us around the West cemetery and showed us some of the key graves and told us some interesting stories about some of the ‘residents’ of the cemetery. I am sure with 50,000 plus graves there are 50,000 stories but we have to be content with a dozen or so. You are not allowed to wander through the West side without a guide. There is a small book store which you come to at the end of the tour and I don’t believe it is accessible without doing the tour.

In the newer east side you may wander as you wish. Admission is £2, plus £1 if you wish to take photos and a further £1 for a map. If you don’t wish to buy the map the gate attendant will direct you to Karl Marx and George’ Elliot’s graves. If you carry on down from Marx’s grave to see quite a lot of older graves that are crumbling and buried in the bushes and you realise exactly how much work the Friends of Highgate Cemetery have done so far, and you no longer begrudge the admission charge.

Both cemeteries contain a range of simple graves to the opulent and I must say I find a certain Englishness in the simple wonky, stones overgrown with ivy, or where the roots of a tree and broken the stones, and probably prefer them to the angels, urns, lions and cats.