Having Grade I on the Historic England Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England and with 53,000 plus graves, it is a vast cemetery with a size of about 150,000 square meters.
It is split down the middle into an east and west cemetery.
Established in 1839, it is now home to 170,000 people that found their peace here.
Just north of the Oakshott Avenue is the main gate.
The other gate is located at the Chester Road.
The “magnificent seven” is the main reason behind the need to build the cemetery as mentioned above in 1839, and it is actually a plan to provide the city of London with seven large modern cemeteries.
This idea sparked from the need to have bigger cemeteries because the inner-city cemeteries were found to be an undignified way to treat the dead.
The man that lay the blueprints for the Highgate Cemetery is the same person that build the Terrace catacombs (among the many projects) and is the founding member of the cemetery company.
It seems like a creepy choice for a profession but it was one in which Stephen Geary was very much successful.
On the 20th May 1839, Charles Blomfield, Lord Bishop of London, dedicated the cemeteries to St. James.
It was Elizabeth Jackson of Little Windmill Street that was the first resident of this not so “little town” called Highgate cemetery.
She was buried on 26th of May that same year.
The Victorian attitude towards death is responsible for the magnificent looks that this place has today.
A wealth of Gothic buildings and tombs can be found here, and it is a place with a high frequency of visitors.
Between the buildings and the tombs, there is lots of vegetation and a high number of trees, many of which were not nourished by a human.
As strange as it may sound this place is not only home to the dead.
Many small animals such as foxes find Highgate cemeteries to be their home as well.
In order to protect the oldest part of this cemetery, a number of beautifully carved tombs and Victorian mausoleums, the cemetery company agreed to allow admission only in tour groups.
Highgate cemetery is home to the graves of many famous people: Karl Marx, the father of socialism, is buried in the east cemetery; the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams; the writer of Gray’s Anatomy, Henry Gray; the grave of the original manager of the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren; the mastermind of the Great Train Robbery, Bruce Reynolds; the author Mary Ann Evans, also known as George Eliot, and many more.
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