Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery.  I’d been meaning to go for years, as it seems a disgraceful thing to class yourself as a proper, let’s-turn-it-all-to-fictional-uses Londoner and not go to Highgate Cemetery.  It’s famous beyond the boundaries of North London, as a proper overgrown wildness where famous people are buried amid claws of ivy and ancient, cracked stones.  George Elliot is there, as is Karl Marx whose tomb is marked by a spectacularly large image of himself.  Myths surround Highgate, almost none of which have any basis in historical fact – tales of nefarious goings on beneath the trees, of mystic connotations and spooky events – and frankly, walking around the place, you can see why.  To my mild irritation, there’s a £3 charge to enter the cemetery, and while I can see the need to preserve the grounds, in a way Highgate only really became famous, even a tourist attraction of a kind, when it became overrun and disturbed.  There are also two Highgate Cemeteries – a Highgate East and a Highgate West – and to this day I’m not sure how you get into Highgate West – at least while still breathing.  If you want to have an oddly similar experience of a place where nature has run wild, then Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington provides a similar vibe, with the added benefit of no entry fee, and an option on cream teas afterwards…

But enough of words… let’s see if photos can give the gist.