Highgate Cemetery

A few weeks back we took a trip to Highgate Cemetery for Gothic Lit. It was really one of the coolest things I've done in London so far!

Highgate is a really nice area of London in Camden about a mile away from Kings Cross (right by me). The cemetery itself has a really strange history. It opened in the early-mid 1800s along with six other cemeteries in London meant to alleviate some of the crowding in inner-London church yards. Highgate was a very fashionable and expensive place to be buried, and there are a lot of old timey rich folks' graves there today.

However, Highgate went into disrepair and became abandoned for many years. Throughout the 60s and 70s it was often used in filming of horror films. Also during this time, many crazy occultists would break into the cemetery, steal bodies, perform rituals, and other creepy stuff. There is also the story about the modern Highgate Vampire, who supposedly hung around the cemetery during the 1970s.

There are two parts to Highgate, the west side and the east. The west side is only open to those on guided tours, which have to be arranged in advance. The east side is accessible by a small fee (which we didn't even have to pay, as it was sponsored by NYU!) We got a great tour guide who knew so much about  everything there. It was really neat!

The grave of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident and journalist who was poisoned in 2006

The entrance to the Egyptian Avenue

George Wombwell: Menagerist, I thought this grave was so cute! His story is really interesting too

The Circle of Lebanon

View over Egyptian Avenue from the Circle of Lebanon

Rossetti family grave

So. Cool.

And for the big finale- Karl Marx! We got to see his original grave before, which is much smaller and barely noticeable.. 

After our tours we took a walk around the village of Highgate, which is adorable, and got some lunch. A very neat experience that I probably would not have done if not for class, but that I'm really glad I got to do!