London Gothic

Source: Speak Up

Source of the picture: londonhotelsinsight.com

London Gothic

Visiting Highgate Cemetery is like stepping into another world. Just a few miles from the bustle of central London you can find Egyptian architecture and Gothic atmosphere. Here nature is quietly taking over old tomb stones in the final resting place of the famous and the forgotten.

Among those buried at Highgate are Karl Marx, much of the dickens family, the novelist George Eliot and the scientist Michael Faraday. Novels have been set here and movies have been filmed in the cemetery. If feels like a secret garden with foxes, butterflies and grand old monuments. And Highgate is still a working cemetery, although things have changed since it opened.

London in the 1830s was a stinking, overcrowded place. The population had doubled in a few decades. The dead were buried together in shallow graves between houses. Something had to be done to solve the problem, so seven new cemeteries were built (known as “The Magnificent Seven”). Highgate Cemetery was opened in 1839 on a hillside to the north of the city.

STATUS SYMBOL

With its views over London, Highgate became a fashionable cemetery. The Victorian middle classes buried their dead in style here. The elaborate funerals and expensive monuments were signs of social status and prestige. People strolled around the cemetery on a Sunday afternoon, admiring the beautiful lawns and the grand tombs.

The architecture was impressive. Two chapels were built in the Tutor style, and there were Victorian Gothic and Classical structures. But the centerpiece was the Egyptian Avenue. The avenue led to the Circle of Lebanon – catacombs to hold 825 people around and old Cedar of Lebanon tree.

VAMPIRES!

By the 1860s there were more than 30 burials a day, and the new East Cemetery was opened. But the demand for ornate funeral fell, and a century later the cemetery was overgrown, vandalized and practically forgotten.

Around this time there were reports of a vampire haunting the cemetery. The story became a media sensation, and people broke tombs at night and put garlic in coffins. One of those involved was jailed for damage to the cemetery. But the legend lives on – the movie Highgate Vampire was due for release in 2010, but has been delayed through this year.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

The cemetery closed in 1975, but the Friends of Highgate Cemetery were formed the same year to rescue and preserve this unique space. Their philosophy is “managed neglect” they have restored many of the tombs and monuments, while allowing nature to take over in other areas.

Today, Highgate Cemetery is a beautiful woodland full of wildlife. It is peaceful, enchanting and gothic. People are still buried here, while other come from around the world to visit Karl Marx’s grave. But among the fantastic monuments and family mausoleums, each overgrown gravestone has a story to tell.