Highgate Cemeteries

 The Highgate cemeteries are those rare things during lockdown - a destination that is open. And better still, "more" open than in normal circumstances. Normally the west cemetery can only visited by guided tour whereas currently you can go on your own, although pre-booked.

They are very keen to ensure they are complying with Government guidelines. So they say the cemeteries are open for "gentle exercise", but not for "recreation" or "tourism". Now, as a lawyer, I would love someone to define recreation in a way that excludes gentle exercise. I guess basically it means you can walk around provided you promise not to enjoy it. You also have to live in the area, without defining what the area is. I reckon than if I can walk to it, as someone nearing 60, it must be my local area.

Anyway, I decided to book a visit and had a very pleasant afternoon wandering around the two cemeteries, getting some gentle exercise - they are both on a sloping site up Highgate Hill.

The cemeteries were constructed in the 19th century with London's old burial grounds full. They fulfilled the Victorian taste for splendid and sentimental send offs. They were established for profit, aiming to attract a better class of corpse. They are still open to this day and there are a number of very recent famous burials, although they are now no longer run for profit. I think most of their income comes from entrance fees.

What makes the cemeteries so attractive to visit, ironically, is that they were left to decay for so much of the twentieth century, before being saved by the Friends of Highgate. Yes, it is interesting seeing the graves of the famous, but frankly there are not so many famous people here. Mostly it is the Victorian middle classes.  No, what is so attractive is the way the old graves have become overwhelmed by the foliage and ivy and lichen, almost reclaimed by nature. It gives it all a gothic "Hammer House of Horror" feel.

Let's start with the East Cemetery. This one is normally open without pre-booking. It also probably contains the most famous graves, especially the newerones, with more interesting new types of gravestone. But still it is the older ones that just appeal the most...

Here lies the brains behind the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren, with a death mask inserted.

There is a little left wingers corner, huddled around Karl Marx's grave as if in silent adoration.

Karl Marx's memorial is by far the most famous in the cemetery. It is also the brashest, showiest one. Slightly ironically there is a second grave for him here too, the original one in an obscure position befitting his largely unmourned status at death. Apparently he had only 13 mourners attending, even without the need for Covid restrictions to keep the numbers down. However, the Communist Party of Great Britain (alias the stooges for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which funded them) decided in the fifties that they needed to splash out on something bigger to celebrate the man with possibly the worst ideas of all time, going by the number of people who have died in the professed cause of Marxism in wars, famines and state repression. Depressing thought. But it does get the most attention.

My favourite grave is the one for Douglas Adams, the author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Ever so simple, but made by the little pot of pens in front, where you might expect a vase of flowers. Sometimes someone leaves a towel (you need to have read Hitchhikers Guide for that one).

This is a good one too

This quite extravagant memorial is to Philip Gould, who was one of the main architects behind the revival of New Labour in the nineties. He would no doubt be turning underneath this seeing how Corbyn has sent the Labour party all the way  back again...

The original Highgate Cemetery was what is now the West Cemetery. This has the most magnificent Victorian mausoleums, is the most atmospheric (ie overgrown) and contains the most bits that are roped off because of dangerously leaning stones.

You enter via this rather magnificent gateway which leads onto a grand courtyard which isn't too easy to photograph effectively, but essentially was a space large enough to get a horse drawn hearse into and turned round. 

Then you just wend your way up to through various paths which take you up to the far end and the grandest memorials - the Egyptian Avenue leading to the Circle of Lebanon, a circle of tombs built around an old Cedar of Lebanon.

Grave of the poet Tennyson, one of the first you see just inside the main gate

This is actually one of the most recent monuments - a new neo-classical mausoleum for the 21st century.

I love the way creepers have enveloped this grave - spooky.

This is not a memorial to a dead horse, but to a gentleman who is proudly proclaimed to be "Horse Slaughterer to the Queen" . In Queen Victoria's era disposing of horses was a serious business - I guess the modern equivalent would be "scrap king". He was, after all, scrapping the "engines" of Victorian transport.

And here is a fine example of changing fortunes and the fleeting nature of fame. While as noted above, Karl Marx could only attract 13 mourners, the chap buried in the grave below attracted a crowd of 10,000. But you are unlikely to have heard of Thomas Sayers. His fame was in being the top prize fighter of his day.

This is the Mausolem of Julius Beer, the most magnificent of all the mausoleums in the cemetery, built for the death of Beer's daughter, and based on the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

This is the Circle of Lebanon. Very atmospheric.

This is the entrance to the Egyptian Avenue

The family repository of the artist Rossetti. The cemetery contains just over 50,000 graves but 170,000 people are buried here, many in family graves.