Return to Highgate

When I was in London for a few days at the beginning of the year, I finally managed to make a return visit to Highgate Cemetery – one of the world’s most celebrated dark-tourism attractions in that category (cemeteries). I had first seen it in the first half of the 1980s not long after the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust had made the overgrown Western section accessible to the public on guided tours (while the Eastern section remained freely accessible then). The tour I went on left a lasting visual impression on me. So I had long wanted to go back, but repeatedly found myself running out of time on my short London stopovers over the past few decades. Then I recently read a lot about the place in this thought-provoking book about dark tourism and that made me even keener to go back. So this time I made sure I was able to work in a visit on my last day in London. And my, was it worth it!

I’ve just finished rewriting, updating and expanding the chapter for Highgate Cemetery on my main website, but I thought since it’s such a visually appealing place I should also make a Blog post, in the style of a photo essay (as I have done on here several times before for various locations).

So for background information, practicalities and all that I shall refer you to the new updated Highgate Cemetery chapter on my main website, and here I will keep the text short and mostly let the photos speak for themselves. There is some overlap with the photo gallery that accompanies the website chapter, but there are also differences, including some images that do not feature on the website at all. Here we go:

To kick off, let’s get duty out of the way first. For most people, Highgate Cemetery is primarily known as the final resting place of Karl Marx, the German philosopher who is credited with having founded communism. He was buried in a regular modest grave at first, but in the 1950s the British communist party had him exhumed and placed in a new grave marked by a big solid tomb monument featuring a bronze bust of the lavishly bearded head of Marx:

 

 

This is located in the Eastern section of Highgate Cemetery and has become a veritable pilgrimage site, especially for communists from around the world, of course, but not just for communists. The monument features a couple of Marx quotes (especially that famous line “workers of all lands, unite”) and also points out the other family members interred here as well. Pilgrims regularly leave flowers, mementoes and even letters of appreciation at the bottom of the monument. Amongst the mementoes, I was somewhat surprised to see coins and even banknotes of various currencies, including Chinese but also Mexican and Argentinian! Well, I guess given that Marx penned “Das Kapital” (‘Capital’) such monetary donations are in a way fitting enough …

 

 

Across the path from Marx is an assortment of graves of various other communists and political activists, including some from countries you wouldn’t think of first in the context of communism, such as South Africa, Iran or Iraq:

 

 

While Marx’s grave is no doubt the most prominent and most visited one at Highgate, there are also other celebrity names to be found here, including several ones buried in more recent years of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

One example is the grave of Douglas Adams, author of the five-part trilogy “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, an elaborate and highly imaginative Sci-Fi spoof that had a profound influence on me in my younger years; so this for me was a pilgrimage destination indeed:

 

 

Note the mementoes left here: a pot crammed full of biros and a few instances of the number 42 – both references to parts of the “Hitchhiker” books. If you don’t get these references, then I’m afraid you have a lot of reading to do in order to get them (but I can promise it will be sublimely entertaining reading!), as I won’t give it away here …

Very close by I noticed another remarkable, and highly unusual headstone, one that seems to emulate the cover of a book (from the Penguin publishing house):

 

 

Indeed it says on the side, i.e. the spine of the “book” (not really visible here at this angle), “The Final Chapter” and the dates of birth and death of the deceased (a very untimely death at the age of only 34). Note that unlike with the genuine Penguin books (featuring a solitary penguin drawing), there are two penguins represented here and at the top it says “partner_” with an extra space. When I searched for a backstory for this I happened upon this lovely piece (external link); it doesn’t provide solid factual background, but it’s so imaginative it more than makes up for it – do read it (to get to the relevant bits you’ll have to scroll a little over halfway down).

Another favourite tombstone I found in the Eastern section of Highgate Cemetery is this one – kind of stating the obvious:

 

 

This is the grave of artist Patrick Caulfield and apparently he designed the headstone himself. I found it one of the most remarkable modern-design headstones I’ve ever seen!

Possibly also designed by the person interred here herself, this is the grave of Anna Mahler, the sculptor daughter of the famous composer Gustav Mahler:

 

 

Possibly the most celebrated unusual grave monument here, and one of my all-time favourites, is this stone grand piano (same photo as the featured one at the top of this post):

 

 

This is the grave of William Henry “Harry” Thornton, a pianist and singer who’s thought to have performed for troops in WW1, and who subsequently died of the Spanish flu in December 1918 aged only 35. If you look closely at the propped up lid of the piano you can see that it is cleaner and looks newer than the rest of the monument. Indeed, it’s a replacement. The original had fallen victim to vandalism and was missing when I first visited Highgate in the 1980s. Here’s a scan of the print of the analogue photo I took back then:

  

 

But let’s now move on to the Western section of Highgate Cemetery, the much more atmospheric and architecturally richer half of the two, and the one that for decades was closed to the public except for on guided tours. Since the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, this part has been opened up for self-guided visits (with the aid of a map that you are handed together with your admission ticket). So that’s what I did in January. Being able to explore independently at your own pace also allows for more creative photography. Here’s an example, playing with perspective and ‘bokeh’ (blur):

  

 

The Western section also has its fair share of famous graves, though here most of them are from the 19th century and hence of less contemporary relevance. One notable exception is this grave:

 

 

This is the grave of Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko, an ex-secret-service agent turned Kremlin critic who found exile in Britain but in 2006 was poisoned with the extremely rare highly radioactive element polonium-210, of which he died on 23 November 2006. He had been researching the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and like her he is assumed to have been killed off by Russian agents, presumably on direct orders from Vladimir Putin himself … and they were not to be the last ones in a string of such assassinations in order to silence critics …

Another famous grave in the Western section of Highgate Cemetery is that of pop superstar and icon George Michael who suddenly passed away on Christmas Day 2016. His grave does not bear his stage name but only his original Greek birth name of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. Yet a sign by the plot admonishes visitors not to leave mementoes or take photos of the private plot. Hence I can only mention this in passing.

The main focus in the Western section is not so much individual graves and their histories anyway, but much more on the unique architectural glory of this Victorian cemetery. It is indeed a visual feast of the finest sort. Here’s one of the highlights, the entrance to the Egyptian Avenue flanked by two faux antique obelisks:

  

 

The Egyptian Avenue itself is a narrow alleyway flanked by family crypts/columbaria and almost tunnel-like covered by foliage of the trees beyond:

 

 

This leads to the Circle of Lebanon, a circular “trench” with yet more crypts/columbaria on either side and a grassy patch on the top of the circular space above. This is where there was originally a genuine Lebanon cedar tree standing in the centre. The tree actually predated the creation of the cemetery but was skilfully integrated into its fancy pseudo-oriental design. Yet in 2019 a disease brought the tree down and it was removed and replaced by a sapling, which so far hasn’t grown much beyond a feeble twig:

  

 

At the apex of the Circle of Lebanon stands the largest of the mausoleum buildings here, towering over its surroundings – this was commissioned by German-born financier and owner of The Observer, Julius Beer:

  

 

In front of one of the family columbaria within the Circle of Lebanon I spotted a pot of flowers left as a memento for Radclyffe Hall, the pioneer of lesbian literature:

  

 

When I first visited the Western section of Highgate Cemetery in the 1980s, it was still much more overgrown, especially with the aggressive invasive species sycamore. As this was stifling the natural flora and fauna and slowly destroying the stonemasonry and architecture, it has meanwhile largely been cut back. I also remember several trees growing directly out of graves. I still found one tree stump seemingly breaking free from a grave, but this has been cut short and is no longer alive:

  

 

Yet parts of the cemetery are still pretty much overgrown – and some paths are even out of bounds to visitors for that reason:

  

 

Here and there you still get foliage wrapping itself around Victorian sepulchral statuary, such as at this stone angel and cross (note the symbol on the cross that looks like a dollar sign!):

  

 

While this angel is still pretty much intact and looking beautiful, others have suffered much more from the ravages of time and erosion, such as this rather withered-away statue:

 

 

Some sepulchral bas-reliefs haven’t fared much better, such as this rather de-faced one:

  

 

No wonder this little cupid looks a bit grumpy:

  

 

.. while this bas-relief of a cluster of angels suffers more from cobwebs and dirt:

  

 

With this we are already drifting towards something I just can’t help doing when visiting and photographing cemeteries with ageing sepulchral artwork like this: I start reinterpreting (and, frankly, over-interpreting). It’s like a reflex. I cannot stop it. (See also the photo gallery for this cemetery.) I know it may come across as a tad disrespectful, and in a way I guess it is, even though the “victims” are made of stone and are stone-cold dead, and also from bygone times, so they can hardly be offended. So I’ll let loose with the remaining few photos from Highgate Cemetery – enjoy …

  

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

With this I shall come to a close – I hope you enjoyed this cemetery photo essay – at 31 images the largest so far on this Blog!

But so much for this time …