Highgate cemetery tour

On Saturday I went on a guided tour of Highgate cemetery https://highgatecemetery.org/visit

You can’t book tickets at the week-end, but 90 minute tours go every half hour and the £12 ticket also gives you entry to the East cemetery.

I remember visiting Karl Marx’s grave with my socialist husband a long time ago. The morning of our visit it was daubed with red paint, but they were scraping it off when we returned an hour or so later.

The cemeteries had been locked up and left to nature until they were taken over by a trust in the 1970s.

There is a big cedar tree in the middle of the circle of vaults, but otherwise the trees are very tall, thin and straggly. I am not sure what kind of trees they are – not evergreens. I wanted to ask why the trunks were so thin, but felt it was a stupid question and not one the guide could answer. A flock of parakeets were having an argument among them at one point.

The catacombs were not as well preserved as the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily where you can literally see the bodies on the shelves. The tombstones were predominantly green in colour from years of exposure to the elements.

One surprise was Litvinenko’s grave (the Russian defector poisoned by polonium in 2006) buried on the west side. The guide said the polonium was not dangerous underground.

 

What did I learn?

The limited nature of funeral architecture.

That far more people in England get cremated than say in America or France.

You can still get buried there although I guess they prefer famous people.

The guide told great stories of people who were famous in the last century, but not really known now – a stage coach owner who still holds the record for the fastest return trip to Brighton with horse power, a boxer, a 19^th century lesbian writer, a menagerist …….. there are fresh bouquets by people’s favourites.

It is a beautiful place, overlooked by this amazing, privately owned glass house and there are some great traditional pubs in Highgate village to visit afterwards.