WEBVTT 1 00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:16.600 Far spread below Death London War. It's cloud by day, its fire by 2 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:22.719 night, yet scarce with heavenly presence. There shrined in the smoke or pallid 3 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:32.000 light, dappled ashen stone, replete with twisting vines and dripping moss riddles, 4 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:41.280 The gentle nooks and slopes of Highgate Hill lacerated by reposeful meandering pathways like a 5 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:47.840 Gothic bazaar, presenting wares to passer by. Tombs, sculptures, headstones, 6 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:55.039 obelisks, and angels stand dutifully nestled within a dense quilt of trees, flowers 7 00:00:55.079 --> 00:01:03.200 and shrubs. Mausoleums huddled together among architecture of various entrancing, exotic styles. 8 00:01:03.040 --> 00:01:10.920 One moment you're in ancient Egypt, another ancient Rome. Incessant troops from that 9 00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:18.079 vast throng withdraw to silent colonies, where houses low are fair and strong, 10 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:26.359 though ruins all that dwell in these, The air and atmosphere are old. 11 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:32.480 Here, though its inhabitants draw breath no more, History is alive and palpable, 12 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:38.640 shadowed and hushed. A world within a world. The silence of tens 13 00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:45.079 of thousands of souls speaks volumes to those who pause and pay attention. Yet 14 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:49.560 within this hallowed hidden haven, not every soul is said to rest in peace. 15 00:01:51.799 --> 00:01:57.840 Strange phantoms, black magic, anomalous mists, and a spade of vampire 16 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:06.159 hysteria have seemingly played this otherwise sublime necropolis for ages, prompting people to ask, 17 00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:10.719 is this a beautiful parcel of perfect land for the dead or an area 18 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:19.879 of ominous oddness where the dead aren't quite as quiet as we think? Yet 19 00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:24.319 neath the universal sky, bright children here too, run and sing, calm, 20 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:32.840 verter waxes, green and high in Graveside roses. Smell of spring in 21 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:43.479 Highgate Cemetery by William Allingham. We're visiting Highgate Cemetery on this episode of Blurry 22 00:02:43.879 --> 00:03:28.439 Photo. Hey everyone, welcome to Blurry Photos and a very late Blurry Photober. 23 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:31.240 I'm your host, David Flora. I've got a good one here for 24 00:03:31.319 --> 00:03:37.280 you, all about England's gorgeous Gothic gift to us, all Highgate Cemetery. 25 00:03:38.439 --> 00:03:42.960 I had the absolute fortune to visit the cemetery last December, and I can 26 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:46.639 tell you right now, if you have the chance, go see it for 27 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:51.159 yourself. If you like this show, I would bet money you'd like Highgate 28 00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:55.560 Cemetery. It's probably what you picture when you hear old Victorian cemetery, a 29 00:03:55.639 --> 00:04:02.120 true mossy monument and charming over growth kind of spot, and like any good 30 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:09.960 imagined Victorian boneyard, it has its share of ghost stories, particularly involving a 31 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:15.520 supposed vampire and those that wish to destroy it. In this episode, I'll 32 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:19.879 go over the history of the cemetery from inception to modern day, some notable 33 00:04:19.879 --> 00:04:26.600 features and inhabitants, and will discuss the many tales and experiences people have claimed 34 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:30.160 to have had there over the years. Now I was lucky enough to take 35 00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:36.160 a guided tour of the cemetery and even luckier to have gotten John wait as 36 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:41.839 my guide, and that luck has continued as I asked John to join me 37 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.560 to discuss Highgates Cemetery on this episode and he agreed. John Waite is an 38 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:53.439 award winning British radio and television presenter working for the BBC. He's hosted such 39 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:57.399 shows as You and Yours Face, The Facts and Pick of the Week, 40 00:04:57.720 --> 00:05:01.800 as well as adding his voice talents to The I Economist's weekly podcast. He 41 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:06.519 volunteers as a guide at Highgate Cemetery, which is where I met him and 42 00:05:06.839 --> 00:05:14.360 shared his exuberance of this special place in the North suburb of London. How 43 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:17.639 long have you been given tours at Highgate? I suppose I've been giving tours 44 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:23.079 now for the past, say thirteen years. But I've been associated with the 45 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:28.560 cemetery since i first went there, and that's fifty years ago. I was 46 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:33.079 a young reporter. I was a trainee reporter for the BBC and then most 47 00:05:33.079 --> 00:05:39.480 prestigious radio program is called the Today Program. It's still running. And I 48 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:45.720 was sent there fifty years ago as a trainee because Britain's most famous cemetery, 49 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:50.879 which had been closed for half a century, Highgate Cemetery was reopening for the 50 00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:55.399 first time, so it was quite a big story. I was sent along 51 00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:59.000 as a trainee to cover it and I was captivated by the place. So 52 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:02.759 I've been going back there for half a century. I've been taking people around 53 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:08.560 there for thirteen years. John'll be popping in here and there as we learn 54 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:13.120 all about Highgate and its mysteries, and I'm excited to share his knowledge with 55 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:16.879 you. And that knowledge goes all the way back to the early nineteenth century, 56 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:21.600 when Highgate was but a growing village around a toll house that's set upon 57 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:27.279 Highgate Hill, on one of the main northerly roads out of London Town. 58 00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:38.240 While certainly not the oldest spot in the country, Highgate Cemetery can claim a 59 00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:44.000 respectable pedigree of being almost two centuries old. The year was eighteen thirty two 60 00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:48.879 when Parliament passed an act that encouraged establishment of private cemeteries outside of central London, 61 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:55.279 and seven short years later Highgate Hill was targeted as a spot for just 62 00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:59.480 such a cemetery. There was a very good reason for this, as John 63 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:05.360 points out, well, what happened was something called the Industrial Revolution. Up 64 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:09.439 until that point in the history of the world, certainly in the history of 65 00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:13.199 the Western world, in America, just as in my own country in the 66 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:17.160 United Kingdom, people lived at home, and they lived off the land, 67 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:23.120 and they grew what they needed, and nobody moved very much. And therefore 68 00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:28.879 towns and cities weren't very big. And then the Industrial Revolution, which started 69 00:07:29.079 --> 00:07:33.639 here in Britain, you know, with industrial processes and factories and jobs, 70 00:07:34.199 --> 00:07:42.079 brought people literally in their millions, into the cities and into London in particular, 71 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:46.800 which grew in seventy years, David. It grew from the biggest city 72 00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:51.720 in the world of about seventy thousand people into two and a half million. 73 00:07:53.680 --> 00:08:01.040 And so one of the things that that means is this relatively small city ran 74 00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.199 out of grave space and you could only be buried. In those days, 75 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:09.680 cremation was against the law in Britain. It wouldn't be legal for one hundred 76 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:15.759 years in the nineteen thirties. So somebody had to do something about grave space. 77 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:20.399 And an entrepreneur called Stephen gear He said, I'll build some private cemeteries. 78 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:26.319 This is in the teeth of opposition from the churches who thought you shouldn't 79 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:33.440 be making profits from the dead. So he built these rather opulent circle they 80 00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:39.639 called the Magnificent Seven. Now, I know you Americans hijack that phrase for 81 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:43.559 a Cowboys film, but in fact, the original Magnificent seven, if you 82 00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:48.440 go and look back in your history books, was what the press dubbed. 83 00:08:48.559 --> 00:08:54.399 These seven pretty big private cemeteries in a big ring around London, way outside 84 00:08:54.440 --> 00:09:00.360 of London in those days, four or five miles outside. And high Gate 85 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:03.200 was his baby. He was in charge of all seven. He was behind 86 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:07.679 all seven, but he was based at Highgate and he had big plans for 87 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:11.519 Highgate, and it was the most spectacular of them all. A city of 88 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:16.159 the dead. He intended to build a necropolis, a city of the dead, 89 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:26.080 with obviously carriageways and walkway sidewalks and buildings, and this was the most 90 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:28.879 sensational aspect. Buildings, of course, for the city of the dead wouldn't 91 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:31.799 be shops or offices like a normal city. The dead would have no need 92 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:37.759 of those. It was some funerary buildings, an Egyptian avenue of crypts, 93 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:41.679 a Greek circle of crypts, and the first Roman catacombs to be built in 94 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:50.080 Britain. Even traveling just a few miles outside the city was like being in 95 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:54.679 a whole different world. At the time, woods and farmlands sprawled among the 96 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:58.519 gentle hills north of the city, and the spot mister Geary chose for his 97 00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:03.120 pet prize was Highgate Hill in the village of Highgate, a spot that was 98 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:07.159 traditionally a hunting estate for the Bishop of London, complete with a deer proof 99 00:10:07.240 --> 00:10:13.279 hedge and a tall gate to get in and out. It was also right 100 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:18.360 next to an old trade route known as Swain's Lane. A swain is another 101 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:20.600 word for a shepherd, and the narrow road came to be known as Swain's 102 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:24.720 Lane due to its importance in providing a route from the farms of the area 103 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:30.320 down to Spittlefield's Market in the city, where pig farmers would take their stock. 104 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:35.000 At the time, the land belonged to a nobleman, one time Sheriff 105 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:41.799 of London, Mayor of London and several time MP Sir William Ashurst. Well, 106 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:45.679 it actually belonged to a local nobleman whose name I think I always forget 107 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:48.639 his name. Certain names you could never get near Nodle, and this is 108 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:50.279 one of these. I think his name was Slashes. But he had quite 109 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:58.200 a big sort of country home there and it was all grazing land. He 110 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:03.840 had sheep and a few catalytes, and he was planning on moving anyway. 111 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:11.639 And so when the company approached him, could they buy these initially seventeen acres 112 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:18.799 of his And they offered him a very good price. He agreed, And 113 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:22.039 the idea was that it was four or five miles from the center of London, 114 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:24.720 on the highest point north of London, you know, deep in the 115 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:30.960 countryside, good fresh air, lovely views over London. But you weren't, 116 00:11:31.399 --> 00:11:33.399 you know, you weren't too close to London, which was a very dangerous 117 00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:37.000 place to be close too, because there were too many people living there with 118 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:41.600 no proper s annotation or sewers or anything. So there was a lot of 119 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:46.480 awful things collar and knocking around in the air. So that's why it was 120 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:52.039 chosen to be so far outside of London. It was just safer to build 121 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:56.960 it there being a private cemetery and in a desirable spot. The cemetery was 122 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:01.840 not open to just any old tosser. Yes, it was no doubt about 123 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:07.120 it. It was very exclusive. I don't know how much. When I 124 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:13.000 give you the figures in British pounds it will mean to your sistance, But 125 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:20.240 there's sort of the cheapest, the very cheapest bargain basement interment would have been 126 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:24.799 forty pounds. Some people spent a lot more than that. I probably showed 127 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:31.879 you when I showed you around David. The mausoleum dedicated to a little girl 128 00:12:31.879 --> 00:12:37.080 called Aida Beer. Her dad, her father spent eleven million pounds on that. 129 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:41.919 But so you had to have money to be buried there. It was 130 00:12:41.039 --> 00:12:46.759 really quite an exclusive affair. Yes, you're right. The third of the 131 00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:52.240 Magnificent Seven to open. It had room for thirty thousand graves for those with 132 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:56.080 the cash to buy one, though it seems one's pocketbook wasn't a deterrent in 133 00:12:56.200 --> 00:13:03.840 visiting the lovely new Necropolis, and eighteen forty work called Cemetery Interment by A. 134 00:13:03.080 --> 00:13:07.879 George Collison gives us a personal account of how some people didn't even need 135 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:13.960 a grave to enjoy the location. One is so much accustomed to associate ideas 136 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:18.320 of pleasure and holiday making with Highgate and its beautiful vicinity, that a cemetery 137 00:13:18.360 --> 00:13:22.240 seems almost the last place we should think of meeting with there, And so 138 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:26.639 little is the feeling subdued by the general associations of the place that the author 139 00:13:26.679 --> 00:13:31.960 has seen parties of pleasure, partaking of their slight refreshments in rural language called 140 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:39.480 picnic within the consecrated area. The cemetery on Highgate Hill provided wonderful views of 141 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:45.799 London miles down below, though some would say as opulent Mausoleum. After Mausoleum 142 00:13:45.879 --> 00:13:50.840 was erected, those views became more and more scarce. But it was the 143 00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:56.600 Victorian age where showing off was expected even after death. Oh no, I 144 00:13:56.639 --> 00:14:03.080 think, to be honest, it was no way of demonstrating how successful you 145 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:07.360 were. I mean, the Victorian era made a number of people extremely rich, 146 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:13.519 indeed, and rich people you know quite like to show you know how 147 00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:20.039 successful they've been. So with mister with mister Beer, his little daughter Ada, 148 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:22.720 as I say, they lived in the center of London. She breathed 149 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:28.639 the air of London, and like so many children and older folk, she 150 00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:31.879 died she was eight. So he had all the money in the world. 151 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:35.360 He reckoned. He was the richest man in Victorian England. And I think 152 00:14:35.399 --> 00:14:39.480 he was telling the truth. He'd said, I'm the richest man outside of 153 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:45.000 royalty. I mean that's of another order. But you know, the royals 154 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:48.879 inherit money and they pass it on. But for a self made man, 155 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:52.600 he reckoned. He was the richest in Victorian England, which means he was 156 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:56.559 very rich because a lot of money knocking around. Britain was the center of 157 00:14:56.559 --> 00:15:03.759 the industrial Revolution. So he imported Carrara marble, which from the quarry in 158 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:11.120 Italy that Michaelangelo used. He used it for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Mister 159 00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:16.799 Beer used it for the floor of his mausoleum for his daughter. I think 160 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:20.000 I must have urged you to look at the ceiling when you were when you 161 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.080 were there, David. And if the ceiling is glittering, for once, 162 00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.679 all that glitters, all that glistens is gold, it's gold leaf. And 163 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:35.200 if it's not glistening but gleaming jewl like for once, there's semi precious stones. 164 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:41.200 That is where eleven million pounds will go on a mausoleum. And did 165 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:46.320 and I remember you pointing out some of the some of the tunes that had 166 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:54.879 bellmoral marble. You remember my tour. I'm very impressed. Yeah, the 167 00:15:54.960 --> 00:16:02.559 most expensive stone probably in the world time, but he possibly even more expensive 168 00:16:02.639 --> 00:16:10.679 than gold, was called balmarl pink granite. And I think if you're if 169 00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:17.559 you you're British extraction already, you'll be you're probably beginning to understand why because 170 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:21.200 of that word Balmarl. For your listeners, many of whom will perhaps have 171 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:26.200 never heard of the place. Queen Victoria, who's you know, the queen 172 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:29.879 in the in the days we're talking of two hundred years ago, she had 173 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:34.960 discovered with her husband Prince Albert Scotland, British monarchs didn't particularly go to Scotland 174 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:38.960 or to Wales or to you know, the outer realms of the Kingdom. 175 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:47.120 But she discovered Scotland and fell in love with it and bought and built a 176 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:55.080 palace in Scotland where they went every year for a six week holiday, where 177 00:16:55.360 --> 00:17:00.679 the current royal family go every year, the bow Moral Estate in in Ayrshire, 178 00:17:02.200 --> 00:17:04.720 and it's really beautiful, very remote, and she loved it very much. 179 00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:11.279 In the grounds of this royal estate was a quarry and this quarry, 180 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:19.160 mind a particular kind of stone, This Balmral pink granite is so apparently geologically 181 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:25.640 quite unique. Pink granite, isn't that rare, but this is the density 182 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:30.799 of some of the black basalt or whatever it is. I'm not a geologist, 183 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:37.119 but you can if you know your stone, you can tell your bal 184 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:40.599 Moral pink granite. Well. Of course, anything to do with the queen 185 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:44.759 in those days she was a superstar. She was the best known figure in 186 00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:48.720 the world because British Empire ran a third of the world. She was on 187 00:17:48.759 --> 00:17:56.160 all the coins, the all the currency, all the stamps, so anything 188 00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:00.000 to do with her, you know, she was a superstar. So here's 189 00:18:00.039 --> 00:18:06.799 this stuff that's mined in her quarried in her garden, which was fine until 190 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:12.160 one day again reading the Air of London. Her own husband dies, Prince 191 00:18:12.200 --> 00:18:18.480 Albert, and she goes to balmarl their favorite home, and goes really a 192 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:21.880 bit bonkers. She goes a bit mad, and she stays up there in 193 00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:29.759 mourning for twenty years. So it means all this stuff, all this stone 194 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:33.160 that used to be quarried in her back garden, obviously they can't do that 195 00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:38.160 with her in residence. So the price of the stone goes through the roof. 196 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:44.920 And as you rightly recall, we have one or two people in Highgate 197 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:51.160 who had their family crypts made out of the stone, basically boasting showing this 198 00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:56.680 is the most precious and elusive, rare stone in the world. But we 199 00:18:56.279 --> 00:19:00.640 can get hold of it, and we have in a mere fourteen years. 200 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:06.039 The cemetery was home to more than ten thousand bodies, and a year later, 201 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:11.160 in eighteen fifty four, nineteen acres were purchased to supplement the quickly filling 202 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:15.880 necropolis. This parcel of the land was located just across Swain's Lane and became 203 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:19.640 known as the East Side, while the original was called the West. The 204 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:26.359 original cemetery built this City of the Dead built in finished in eighteen thirty nine 205 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:33.799 started in eighteen thirty six completely landscaped. It was so popular that within about 206 00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:41.119 ten years it was full, and so they just bought the field across the 207 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:45.519 road as it were Swain's Lane, the lane that runs by the original cemetery. 208 00:19:45.799 --> 00:19:52.039 They just bought the big field there and started an overspilled cemetery. That's 209 00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:56.000 why there was two halves. The second half was not landscape, was not 210 00:19:56.119 --> 00:20:03.119 particularly special architect truly or in any way. People just happy to be buried 211 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:07.200 at Highgate. It was by this stage it very quickly became the most popular 212 00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:14.799 and the most prestigious place to be buried in Victorian Britain. So people were 213 00:20:14.839 --> 00:20:21.960 just happy to say they were at Highgate. Though still away from the urban 214 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:26.319 miasma of the city, with no shortage of customers in sight, the cemetery 215 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:30.000 began to have trouble of its own. Writing in defense of having fresh water 216 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:37.160 sources in London, Barrister Edward Thomas Wakefield observed in eighteen fifty nine that some 217 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:41.759 of London's drinking water received quote the drainage of Highgate Cemetery, which percolates the 218 00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:47.720 soil on the London side of the cemetery and flows towards the metropolis end quote, 219 00:20:48.359 --> 00:20:52.720 which caused carbonation of the water and obviously posed a danger. Punctuating the 220 00:20:52.759 --> 00:21:00.559 point by highlighting quote the hideous reality of the survivors of each generation immediately drinking 221 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:08.799 in solution the mortal remains of their predecessors. End goodness. I guess pouring 222 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:12.799 one out for the homies wasn't that wasteful after all? Sounds like you'd get 223 00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:18.519 it back eventually. And an article in an eighteen sixty one edition of The 224 00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:25.920 Ladies Companion spoke to the effect so many graves had on the area of Highgate. 225 00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:29.440 I scarcely like to speak, for who desires to speak ill of that 226 00:21:29.599 --> 00:21:34.720 which they have once well loved? And yet on most warm days the exhalations 227 00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:41.119 from the Gratings and Swain's Lane have made us real with faintness. And for 228 00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:45.200 all the wealth of flowers and their perfume, the digging of a grave makes 229 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:48.920 itself evident from one end of a walk to the other. So saturated is 230 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:56.279 the soil with the malaria of decay. It's a wonder so many picnic ers 231 00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:03.000 took their tea amidst such conditions. Sounds like the list of dead at Highgate 232 00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:07.240 included their sense of smell. But hey, it speaks to the beauty of 233 00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:12.599 the place that people wanted to be around despite the unsavory atmosphere. I just 234 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:19.960 hope they got their tea water from somewhere on top of the hill. In 235 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:25.720 all honesty, the beauty of the place could have overcome any foulness, and 236 00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:30.440 in a way that was by design. The original concept though, that this 237 00:22:30.599 --> 00:22:34.079 Stephen Geary had done. When you went to visit, he landscaped it. 238 00:22:34.119 --> 00:22:40.039 He said, so that when you visited to see your loved ones, or 239 00:22:40.039 --> 00:22:45.279 to see them committed interred, you yourself would go as they were going on 240 00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:51.759 a journey into the unknown, and you would as you went around and explored 241 00:22:51.799 --> 00:22:56.640 and discovered the place you would come to know. You'd come to sense more 242 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:04.240 clearly, this is his phrase, invisible beyond. I say this to your 243 00:23:04.279 --> 00:23:07.839 listeners because they'll know who I mean. Some of my British people when I 244 00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:11.759 take them around, don't know when I'd call him the Pt Barnum of burials. 245 00:23:12.119 --> 00:23:17.559 He was a showman. It was all about drama and theater and spectacle 246 00:23:18.119 --> 00:23:22.880 and it was a big gamble David, because the British were much more conservative 247 00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:26.880 much more, you know, small scale, respectful, and you know, 248 00:23:27.400 --> 00:23:32.559 especially when he came to death, and here he was with these big structures, 249 00:23:32.599 --> 00:23:37.799 this Egyptian avenue, or in these vivid colors fresh egg blue and egg 250 00:23:37.880 --> 00:23:44.319 yolk yellow, and the Roman catacombs shelves, hundreds and hundreds of bodies on 251 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:48.720 shelves on shelves. That's not very respectful, and so on. It was 252 00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:53.480 a big gamble. People could have gone, oh no, this is vulgar, 253 00:23:53.519 --> 00:23:56.920 and this is foreign, this is alien and not British. But they 254 00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:00.799 didn't. They loved it. They lapped it up, and so much so, 255 00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:11.400 as I say, he had to build an extension within about ten years. 256 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:23.000 The wanna be just fineing the cemetery, I wanna stand. I want 257 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:27.319 to lend anywhere around. Don't want to wait till it's too lay and I 258 00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:41.279 am seas under. The wanna be iregious money the cementary. You lose your 259 00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:45.000 health of any wealthy certainty. Y see, I'm wanting Biggie with a big 260 00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:52.880 Mormon being on Morty City. I wanna die. As John said earlier, 261 00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:56.640 the East Side wasn't designed to be a city of the dead like the original 262 00:24:56.680 --> 00:25:02.319 West Side was Geary's go was to make the living feel as though they were 263 00:25:02.440 --> 00:25:07.200 experiencing a journey into the unknown, as their loved ones possibly had. Well, 264 00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:11.319 what I probably did with you, what I normally do with my tours, 265 00:25:11.480 --> 00:25:15.359 is we meet in the chapel where people would have done to send off 266 00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:19.880 their loved ones with the final service. Then you come outside and look across 267 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:26.279 the courtyard and there's a flight of steps. Now you can't they've been designed 268 00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:30.240 and built so you can't see the top. Because this is where your journey 269 00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:33.559 to the unknown begins. You walk up those steps and then you find, 270 00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:40.880 as if you remember David Serpentine paths, no straight paths, No straight paths, 271 00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:45.440 because if there were straight you'd see the end. No level paths, 272 00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:49.240 level paths, you'd see the end. So they this is so different to 273 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:55.160 anything that the Brits had experience up to this point. And the idea was 274 00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:57.680 it draws you in. You have to explore. You don't know quite where 275 00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:03.920 you're going. These paths are going to delve and dip and wend and weave, 276 00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:10.440 and the whole thing was an experience, and this two hundred years ago 277 00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:17.640 was just sensational, you know, to the British people, and you remember, 278 00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:19.839 so you know there are no photographs. It's two hundred years ago, 279 00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:25.559 so people can't have seen pictures of an acropolis. I mean there are cities 280 00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:27.839 of the dead in Greece and in Rome, but they can't have seen pictures. 281 00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:33.119 They didn't travel to Greece or Rome two hundred years ago, so this 282 00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:38.200 was a closed book. It was truly therefore reve latery when people went, 283 00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:48.720 and they absolutely loved it. Since folks couldn't necessarily travel to these exotic locales, 284 00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:52.759 the design of Highgate brought it to them. Classical as well as Egyptian 285 00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:57.960 design was incorporated into different areas of the cemetery, including a dark tunnel of 286 00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:03.640 tombs called Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon, which is a circle of 287 00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:08.000 tombs surrounded by a ring of tombs and so named for an old Cedar of 288 00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:14.480 Lebanon tree which stood atop the inner circle of tombs and had existed there since 289 00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:19.920 William Ashurst own the property. Unfortunately, fungus rigged havoc on it, and 290 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:26.359 the hard decision to cut it down was made in twenty nineteen just up from 291 00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:30.799 there. Since the Roman style catacombs built into the slope of the hill and 292 00:27:30.279 --> 00:27:37.039 filled with coffin compartments along the walls of the dark vaults where no artificial lighting 293 00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:40.519 is allowed. I mean I say to people, look, we could put 294 00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:41.680 a light in here. Of course, we could put strip lighting, we 295 00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:47.319 could have spotlight. We could, but then it isn't Victorian. You know, 296 00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:51.519 this is how the Victoria's experienced it. This is how they liked to 297 00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:55.200 experience it. They came to talk to their loved ones. They came to 298 00:27:55.319 --> 00:27:57.359 speak to these coffins. All the coffins, as you remember, David do, 299 00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:00.559 they all face out, all their heads are near you, so you 300 00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:03.759 can literally you can touch them, you can lean into them. But they're 301 00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:07.519 in Victorian times. They would have come to talk to them every week, 302 00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:11.680 probably every day in some cases. I mean, death was so much more 303 00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:15.440 part of life, and they didn't want bright lights. And you know, 304 00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:22.279 this was a sort of reverent act that they came along. And we've kept 305 00:28:22.319 --> 00:28:26.119 it that way. And I think the atmosphere is a million times better because 306 00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:30.400 because you can't see everything very clearly, you do get this tremendous atmosphere. 307 00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:52.279 God, I don't bitary. There are not many better words for Highgate Cemetery 308 00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:57.240 than that one atmosphere. The design elements give it such uniqueness on their own, 309 00:28:57.400 --> 00:29:02.720 but there are a couple more elements that really set it off, including 310 00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:07.359 the wonderment in awe of the guest list. Well, the thing with with 311 00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:12.119 Highgate is the movers and shakers, as we say, you know of the 312 00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:17.200 Victorian era there, but you high that's what we may yeah, High, 313 00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:23.839 but they were the ones who who did stuff and contributed to iconic sort of 314 00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:29.000 things that we know today, but we don't know their names. Necessary So 315 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:33.359 I showed you the MEAs family. I'm sure their memorial, the Meer's family, 316 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:37.720 Britain's longest running family business, you know, over seven hundred years. 317 00:29:37.720 --> 00:29:42.519 When we talk about long, David as you know, we mean long. 318 00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:45.920 I think I probably made the joke to you. I'm going to make it 319 00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:49.039 a game that what's the difference, you know between the Brits and the Americans. 320 00:29:49.400 --> 00:29:55.039 Well, the Brits think one hundred miles is a long way. I 321 00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:56.960 mean we do if we're going one hundred miles, you know, we kit 322 00:29:57.079 --> 00:30:00.000 out, we take food, we take supply to go one hundred miles. 323 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:04.759 But the Americans get this, think one hundred years is a long time. 324 00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:10.319 We don't get out of bed for one hundred years. So our longest running 325 00:30:10.359 --> 00:30:15.599 family business seven hundred years. They make bells, big bells, special bells. 326 00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:19.200 You have one of theirs. You would give it in Philadelphia. It's 327 00:30:19.240 --> 00:30:25.599 called the Liberty Bell. And the most famous bell, we would say, 328 00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:30.920 the Brits would say in the world is Big Ben. And they made The 329 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.119 Miers family made Big Ben. So and then I think I showed you the 330 00:30:34.200 --> 00:30:41.960 guy who designed Buckingham Palace, and so Edward Blow. These people's names aren't 331 00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:45.759 known, but what they did is definitely known. Our most famous residents know 332 00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:49.759 all of your listeners will know, and that is Karl Marx, who was 333 00:30:51.359 --> 00:30:55.720 an emigrants. He'd been chased out of Germany. He had all these curious 334 00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.720 ideas about how the world should be one in communism. And also he'd been 335 00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:06.720 chased out of Germany came to Britain as poor as a church mouse because he 336 00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:11.440 was writing all these books and people thought he was crackers. And so he 337 00:31:11.599 --> 00:31:19.240 died in pretty much obscurity in London. And then, of course he died, 338 00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:23.240 but his fame grew, and so everybody's said of Marx now and he 339 00:31:23.480 --> 00:31:29.440 is now the most visited grave in the in the cemetery. When I first 340 00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:34.160 started their David ten thirteen years ago, you'd have thousands of Russians come to 341 00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:40.039 visit him. You know. Now communism's over in Russia. Now we have 342 00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:45.079 thousands of Chinese visiting the grave of Karl Marx. And that is in the 343 00:31:45.160 --> 00:31:52.839 east, that's in the East section. I was particularly excited to see Michael 344 00:31:52.880 --> 00:32:01.240 Faraday there. Oh yes, yes, well again people, I don't suppose 345 00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:07.000 most people would have heard of him. If you know anything about the world 346 00:32:07.079 --> 00:32:08.759 of electricity, you will have heard of him. In fact, there's a 347 00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:15.680 unit of electricity called a Faraday. I was honored and privileged. One day. 348 00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:19.039 I love who turns up on my tours. On our tours, anybody 349 00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:24.319 is not just mine, but going quite often they're experts in their particular field 350 00:32:24.319 --> 00:32:32.200 who come to see somebody, literally somebody in particular. And one day on 351 00:32:32.359 --> 00:32:37.279 one of my tours was a guy I think he was from Princeton, but 352 00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:44.839 anyway, he was in charge of the Albert Einstein Laboratory and offices, which 353 00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:49.640 I think is in Princeton. And he said, we kept Albert Einstein's office 354 00:32:50.200 --> 00:32:53.119 exactly as it was on the day that he died. And the office has 355 00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:58.160 one picture on the wall. The wall's covered as you might imagine in formulae 356 00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:00.799 and all that you know, But there's one picture on the wall. And 357 00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:05.839 the picture is not of his wife or of his children, or it's of 358 00:33:06.119 --> 00:33:10.079 Michael Faraday, his great hero. To Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday was without 359 00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:15.880 doubt the greatest scientists who ever lived. And Albert Einstein said he was the 360 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:20.759 father of the twentieth century. What he meant by that was in the nineteenth 361 00:33:20.839 --> 00:33:25.079 century when this Highgate Cemetery opened. In the Victorian era two hundred years ago, 362 00:33:25.599 --> 00:33:30.960 you had steam, and you had gas for lighting you. Most of 363 00:33:31.920 --> 00:33:37.160 power was provided by horses horsepower. What you didn't have is electricity. This 364 00:33:37.319 --> 00:33:44.599 is the twentieth century phenomenon. The Victorians knew about electricity. They could see 365 00:33:44.599 --> 00:33:46.400 it every time there was a lightning strike. They could see the power of 366 00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:51.000 this thing. But they couldn't capture it, couldn't store it. There's no 367 00:33:51.160 --> 00:33:58.640 kind of motor to deliver electrical power. And mister Faraday, Michael Faraday, 368 00:33:58.759 --> 00:34:02.279 this amazing son artists had a hand in delivering all of those things. So 369 00:34:02.680 --> 00:34:07.880 That's why Albert Einstein called him the father of the twentieth century, the century 370 00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:17.280 of electricity. Fifteen acres were originally designed to hold graves for the members of 371 00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:22.920 the Church of England, with two more for dissenters or those who separated from 372 00:34:22.960 --> 00:34:29.599 the church. Those of other faiths or no faith at all were buried against 373 00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:31.639 one of the outer walls on the west side, which is where you can 374 00:34:31.679 --> 00:34:37.679 find Faraday's headstone. Other notable residents of the East and west sides include author 375 00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:45.000 Douglas Adams, musician George Michael, author George Eliot aka Mary Ann Evans, 376 00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:50.559 the wife, sister and parents of Charles Dickens, and he's buried in Westminster 377 00:34:50.599 --> 00:34:54.960 Abbey. Henry Gray, author of Grey's Anatomy, actor Ian Holm, who 378 00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:00.559 played Bilbo Baggins and The Lord of Rings films, actor Bob hast Skins who 379 00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:04.360 played Mario in that nineties Mario movie, as well as Smee and Hook, 380 00:35:05.639 --> 00:35:12.000 and a host of other famous and infamous folk. The third component to Highgates 381 00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:16.159 atmosphere, in my opinion, is how it looks now. Originally, as 382 00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:21.519 we said, it was clean cut and maintained, but the twentieth century saw 383 00:35:21.559 --> 00:35:27.519 it fall into a state of disrepair. Well, it was so popular, 384 00:35:27.559 --> 00:35:30.159 as I say, that it was nearly full within about a decade, and 385 00:35:30.239 --> 00:35:37.559 so they opened this extension. But then came along the Great War, the 386 00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:43.320 First World War, which for US was nineteen fourteen nineteen eighteen, for you, 387 00:35:43.559 --> 00:35:47.360 for the Americans nineteen seventeen to nineteen eighteen. But when the Americans entered 388 00:35:47.400 --> 00:35:51.760 the war, it soon came to an end because you know, they tipped 389 00:35:51.800 --> 00:35:55.960 the whole balance. But what it meant was it was the Great War, 390 00:35:57.079 --> 00:36:02.480 and everyone in Europe, certainly of the belligerents, would have known someone who 391 00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:07.360 died. I mean in my family, you know, I had family members 392 00:36:07.400 --> 00:36:15.119 who died and they were usually just left but buried where they fell on the 393 00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:22.719 battlefields of Europe, France or Belgium, and they had no memorial and if 394 00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:28.440 they did, it was a cheap white cross in a sort of military cemetery 395 00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:35.800 if they were lucky and so and so that's one aspect of the decline of 396 00:36:35.960 --> 00:36:39.480 Highgate, because there was a moral revulsion. Let's put it that way. 397 00:36:39.639 --> 00:36:45.480 People back home in Britain, you know, their loved ones had given their 398 00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:50.480 lives in battle, maybe their husband, maybe their brother, maybe their son, 399 00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:53.559 maybe their fiance, their best friend, maybe all of them. And 400 00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:59.559 where were they They had no grave, and here were people like mister Beer 401 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.440 spending eleven million pounds on a dead daughter. So there was a sort of 402 00:37:04.599 --> 00:37:09.519 revulsion. And then on a practical level, there were one hundred gardeners at 403 00:37:09.599 --> 00:37:14.840 Highgate. There were one hundred or I think fifty sorry monumental masons. There 404 00:37:14.840 --> 00:37:21.199 were hundreds of working class men who kept the thing going, and they were 405 00:37:21.239 --> 00:37:24.760 all called up and many did not come back. So the combination of all 406 00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:32.199 these things meant that from about nineteen eighty nineteen the beautifully kept Highgates started to 407 00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:36.400 fall into decline. And the more it fell into decline, the more people 408 00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:38.639 came along and looked at it. Didn't like what they saw quite so much 409 00:37:38.840 --> 00:37:44.280 because it was getting a bit tatty, and so they went elsewhere, and 410 00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:49.000 so of course that was even less income, so even more decline, And 411 00:37:49.159 --> 00:37:53.559 so in about nineteen twenty two was it twenty four, a few years after 412 00:37:53.639 --> 00:37:59.000 the end of the Great War, they kind of locked up the gates, 413 00:37:59.639 --> 00:38:04.119 hoped for better things, hope for a return of their fortunes, which never 414 00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:10.880 came. And so fifty years Later in the nineteen seventies, a charity opted 415 00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:16.719 to take over the cemetery and start doing it up, and that's the situation 416 00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:23.400 we have today. That charity was the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, an 417 00:38:23.480 --> 00:38:30.320 all volunteer organization which still manages and preserves the cemetery to this day. The 418 00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:36.199 Friends decided to repair and restore Highgate Cemetery, which they nicknamed Victorian Valhalla. 419 00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:40.880 But there were challenges they faced, namely plant growth. Oh, he gave 420 00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:45.519 it an awful lot of atmosphere. Yeah, I should point out there was 421 00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:51.320 not a single tree in the original Highgate Cemetery. It was a cemetery park. 422 00:38:51.400 --> 00:38:54.360 It had these hundred full time gardeners. All they did was plant and 423 00:38:54.440 --> 00:39:00.519 replant flowers and shrubs. The idea was, you see David too, that 424 00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:04.199 when punters came along, when people, prospective clients came along, or people 425 00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:07.599 whose loved ones were there, they came to this well heaven on earth really, 426 00:39:08.199 --> 00:39:12.400 So there was a regulation height of grass. There were peacocks strolling the 427 00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:15.559 grounds. You were deep in the countryside miles from London. In the highest 428 00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:20.079 point north of London you could look down in there in the distance would be 429 00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:24.039 London, a hump of smogan disease and infection. But you you were in 430 00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:29.679 the you know, the clean air of the County of Middlesex. So it 431 00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:34.159 was the idea is when you came along, you didn't feel sorry for your 432 00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:37.920 departed loved ones. You felt almost envious because they were in such beautiful, 433 00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:45.760 exquisite, serene surroundings. So there wasn't a single tree to get in the 434 00:39:45.800 --> 00:39:51.400 way of the views or whatever. But when I went, as I say, 435 00:39:51.519 --> 00:39:55.880 on the opening day in nineteen seventy six I think it was, and 436 00:39:57.079 --> 00:40:00.480 we were let in or officially the gates were open for the first time in 437 00:40:00.519 --> 00:40:05.840 half a century. There were two and a half million trees, far too 438 00:40:05.960 --> 00:40:07.880 many. Yeah, oh yes, when you visited, David, you might 439 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:13.239 have thought, there's a lot of trees. That's ninety thousand. That's only 440 00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:16.960 ninety thousand e left. We couldn't have moved because of the trees. So 441 00:40:17.119 --> 00:40:22.719 what happened was over the years, so many of the trees were removed, 442 00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:27.880 but they're all self seeded. Some were protected species, very rare and protected, 443 00:40:28.119 --> 00:40:30.679 so they have to stay, and the others, if they were removed, 444 00:40:30.719 --> 00:40:34.400 they would compromise a grave. In some way, and that's how we've 445 00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:40.199 done the balancing act between no trees and some trees. And we love the 446 00:40:40.280 --> 00:40:43.760 trees, we don't want them to go. As you say, they add 447 00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.400 such atmosphere, but there were just too many of them, So ninety thousand 448 00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:53.880 is enough. Two and a half million which was too many. The overgrowth 449 00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:59.159 seemed to add to the beauty of the place, and instead of clearcutting everything 450 00:41:00.519 --> 00:41:06.599 sought to preserve the natural additions that weren't actively destroying structures in what they termed 451 00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:13.719 managed neglect, a decision that enhanced the cemetery's character. Oh totally, I 452 00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:17.840 totally agree with you. I think it's even more beautiful today in its as 453 00:41:17.880 --> 00:41:23.000 it were decrepitude than it would have been. I think it would have been 454 00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:27.000 beautiful. And of course we don't have any photos because they haven't been invented, 455 00:41:27.039 --> 00:41:30.400 but we do have a few sketches from the eighteen thirties which do show 456 00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:34.400 it to be a lovely place. And you see the ladies, you know, 457 00:41:34.480 --> 00:41:38.079 in their crinolines and their parasols taking the air. But like you, 458 00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:42.920 you know, I don't want to go back to those days. I love 459 00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:45.840 the way it is now. The nature and nurture, you know, the 460 00:41:45.960 --> 00:41:51.760 man made stuff. And just to show how special it is. You may 461 00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:58.000 not know. We have this system in Britain of sort of listing our most 462 00:41:58.079 --> 00:42:02.760 important places so that the very most important can be protected and not spoiled and 463 00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:08.119 not developed and built on. I can't remember how many there are that. 464 00:42:08.199 --> 00:42:13.000 They're called Grade one. I mean, so Grade two is very important, 465 00:42:13.079 --> 00:42:15.360 and you know, lots of important buildings would be grade too, but the 466 00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:20.679 most precious, a few thousand of them. They're called Grade one, and 467 00:42:20.760 --> 00:42:23.599 they really are. You can't do anything with them. Nothing must ever happen 468 00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:28.639 to them. They're obvious if you've ever been to Britain. The Saint Paul's 469 00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:31.639 Cathedral, they're Westminster Abbey, They're the Tower of London, They're Buckingham Palace, 470 00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:37.840 they are Highgate Cemetery. We are Grade one listed. That's how precious 471 00:42:38.199 --> 00:42:44.719 and special it is. We'll take a quick break and when we come back, 472 00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:49.840 ghosts, magic and a vampire add to Highgates mystique. See on the 473 00:42:49.880 --> 00:43:14.159 other side. Highgate and Swain's Lane were never strangers to violence, highwaymen and 474 00:43:14.280 --> 00:43:19.679 death. In fact, writings from the early nineteenth century suggested the denizens of 475 00:43:19.800 --> 00:43:25.239 Highgate Village were somewhat inclined to being overly excitable, attributing otherwise normal happenings to 476 00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:30.880 the paranormal, and believing a boogeyman lurked in the shadows of Swain's Lane, 477 00:43:30.440 --> 00:43:37.440 waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims. Perhaps the allegations of hysteria are deserved, 478 00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:44.039 perhaps not, But as time has marched on, accounts of paranormal activity have 479 00:43:44.280 --> 00:43:50.159 continued. Familiar types of phenomena have been reported, such as failure of electronic 480 00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:55.679 devices. Cell Phones, cameras, lights, batteries have all been subject to 481 00:43:55.760 --> 00:44:00.920 an apparent unnatural agency, causing fully charged electronics to die on the spot, 482 00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:07.079 phone signals to be lost unexpectedly, and camera buttons failing to perform their function. 483 00:44:08.679 --> 00:44:14.000 Electronic troubles don't seem to be an epidemic, fortunately, as photos and 484 00:44:14.079 --> 00:44:19.480 recordings have been made regularly since it's reopening, and no doubt a good while 485 00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:24.239 before. Personally, I took like a thousand pictures there and I had no 486 00:44:24.440 --> 00:44:31.719 trouble at all. Perhaps the most famous EVP or electronic voice phenomena was captured 487 00:44:31.800 --> 00:44:37.840 in nineteen sixty five by indie record producer Joe Meek. Meek had been visiting 488 00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:44.199 the cemetery at night to record sound there and claimed to have captured a disembodied 489 00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:51.400 female voice saying obscure contorted words. I'll play that right now. Don't blame 490 00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:53.840 me, god now, but those time, I'm just kidding. I couldn't 491 00:44:53.840 --> 00:45:00.559 find the EVP to play you. Sorry now. There have been no shortage 492 00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:05.639 of examples of this podcast's namesake as well, and many carry the classic story 493 00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:08.719 of the photographer not seeing anything out of the ordinary, but when the photo 494 00:45:08.840 --> 00:45:13.920 was developed or looked at later, an odd shape or mist would be present 495 00:45:14.159 --> 00:45:20.280 in it. However, it's the reports of spectral entities that garner the most 496 00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:25.920 excitement and attention for paranormal enthusiasts. Several different encounters have been reported over the 497 00:45:27.039 --> 00:45:30.880 years, with a small variety of alleged phenomena, and these accounts date back 498 00:45:30.920 --> 00:45:37.280 to the nineteenth century. One story from the nineteen seventies details a ghostly figure 499 00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:45.199 unique to other reports. At least two folklorists wrote about an old woman shrouded 500 00:45:45.280 --> 00:45:49.920 in white who stands forlornly at the entrance to the east side of the cemetery, 501 00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:55.719 staring absently out the gate. When approached, she said to disappear quote, 502 00:45:55.840 --> 00:46:01.679 only to reappear a short distance away, adopted the same listless gaze end 503 00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:08.519 quote, and though not explicitly connected by anyone reporting them, there is another 504 00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:13.440 old woman said to have been seen in the cemetery, and speculation has been 505 00:46:13.559 --> 00:46:17.440 raised of whether or not they are the same entity. The second apparition of 506 00:46:17.440 --> 00:46:22.239 an older woman dashes through the headstones, almost as if she's frantically searching for 507 00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:30.440 something or someone. Author and parapsychologist Peter Underwood wrote about this figure in his 508 00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:36.440 nineteen seventy three book Haunted London, where he speculated it to be an quote 509 00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:39.719 old and mad woman whose children were buried here after she had murdered them, 510 00:46:40.039 --> 00:46:45.440 and now her sad and restless spirit seeks the graves of those she harmed but 511 00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:52.079 really loved end quote. There is no evidence presented to lead anyone to this 512 00:46:52.280 --> 00:46:57.679 conclusion, but some sleuths have dug up clues that could support the idea had 513 00:46:57.719 --> 00:47:04.480 there been much more incriminating information. A Morning Chronicle article from eighteen forty five 514 00:47:04.719 --> 00:47:07.719 told of some boys playing around a tree near the southern part of the East 515 00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:14.440 Cemetery when one of them found a black bundle inside the trunk. Opening it, 516 00:47:15.039 --> 00:47:20.559 they discovered the somewhat decomposed body of a child with evidence of violence apparent. 517 00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:25.039 And in eighteen sixty five a trial was held when a Robert Pringle, 518 00:47:25.239 --> 00:47:30.360 a tailor in Highgate Village, found a parcel tied up and upon opening, 519 00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:37.400 discovered the horribly mutilated remains of a baby. The trial mentioned witnesses to two 520 00:47:37.480 --> 00:47:42.000 women fighting over a child near the cemetery, but turned up new culprits. 521 00:47:43.079 --> 00:47:46.679 Coupled with the similar discovery in the tree on Highgate Hill, speculation has been 522 00:47:46.719 --> 00:47:52.159 tossed around that perhaps the Specter of the old Woman is connected, though at 523 00:47:52.199 --> 00:47:57.599 this point it would probably be impossible to confirm. By the middle of the 524 00:47:57.639 --> 00:48:02.159 twentieth century, Highgate Cemetery had become a popular place to gather for magical rituals. 525 00:48:04.199 --> 00:48:07.360 Practitioners of black and white magic saw it as a perfect spot to tap 526 00:48:07.440 --> 00:48:15.199 into other worldly powers, owing to its atmosphere and architecture. Seances and summoning 527 00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:19.519 ceremonies were held in the dead of night, and symbols were drawn in and 528 00:48:19.559 --> 00:48:24.920 among the tombs and catacombs. Stories of summonings and dark magic rituals abounded, 529 00:48:25.400 --> 00:48:30.840 with people claiming to have summoned malicious entities in communed with evil forces, which 530 00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:37.079 only added to the cemetery's mystique. Whether or not this time period spawned future 531 00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:42.960 reports of strangeness is debatable, but it wasn't the first time someone had supposedly 532 00:48:43.079 --> 00:48:49.599 encountered something supernatural there. The New Zealand Herald published a letter from an anonymous 533 00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:54.840 source in eighteen sixty eight that described a harrowing encounter one winter while walking on 534 00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:08.599 nearby Hampstead Lane, just northwest of the cemetery. In the center of the 535 00:49:08.719 --> 00:49:15.159 road was a man, tall, thin, cadaverous, mysterious, noiseless. 536 00:49:15.719 --> 00:49:21.519 The first thought which rushed into my head when I beheld my spectral friend was 537 00:49:22.039 --> 00:49:27.000 is he human or superhuman? If human, then most probably a grotter. 538 00:49:28.440 --> 00:49:32.599 If superhuman, most decidedly one of bad taste to be abroad as a matter 539 00:49:32.679 --> 00:49:38.320 of liking such a night as this, I distinctly remember the great desire my 540 00:49:38.519 --> 00:49:44.519 hair had to lift my hat off my head, and a cold clammy perspiration 541 00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:49.719 beat it on my forehead. Instinctively, I found myself walking on again, 542 00:49:49.920 --> 00:49:53.960 sharply hoping that my companion would by dint of exertion on my part, soon 543 00:49:54.079 --> 00:50:00.239 be left behind. As I quickened my pace, my spectral friend quickly into 544 00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:06.320 his. Also, my friend's footsteps were noiseless. He seemed to glide along 545 00:50:06.599 --> 00:50:09.880 like one of the characters, and skelts shilling toy theaters, still keeping in 546 00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:15.519 the road, but all the while abreast of me, I was confounded. 547 00:50:15.880 --> 00:50:21.480 A feeling of fear came over me. I sickened at heart. I mechanically 548 00:50:21.559 --> 00:50:25.400 walked quicker, he glided quicker, still, breast abreast. I burst into 549 00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:30.400 a trot. He glided into a trot too, still, noiseless, wretched 550 00:50:30.440 --> 00:50:35.280 man as he was. I involuntarily started off downhill as fast as my legs 551 00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:39.079 could take me. To my horror, he glided too faster than ever, 552 00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:46.360 still breast abreast, still, I struggled on on on. Dim pictures of 553 00:50:46.480 --> 00:50:52.519 horses danced past me, now up, now down the hedges past my distorted 554 00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:57.519 vision. Railings shot up and vanished like streaks of white paint. I suppose 555 00:50:57.559 --> 00:51:01.320 I must have ran a good mile, and it somewhat recovered my reasoning faculties 556 00:51:01.559 --> 00:51:06.960 when I felt a desire to stop such an amount of physical exertion, feeling 557 00:51:07.079 --> 00:51:12.000 convinced that I must have got far away from my antagonist. So easing myself 558 00:51:12.079 --> 00:51:16.119 into a slow emotion, I gradually came to a dead standstill and wiped the 559 00:51:16.159 --> 00:51:22.960 perspiration off my face. I thought I would just turn round and scan the 560 00:51:23.039 --> 00:51:30.800 distance which lay atwixt me and mister specter. Horror upon horrors, agony upon 561 00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:37.320 agony. There stood the wretch in the road, tall, thin, cadaverous, 562 00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:47.159 mysterious and noiseless, quite calm and contemplative. Once again I found myself 563 00:51:47.280 --> 00:51:52.440 pursuing my course at a rapid speed, my friend still continuing in concert. 564 00:51:53.679 --> 00:51:58.880 If I lagged, he lagged. If I smartened my pace, he smartened 565 00:51:58.920 --> 00:52:01.679 his. I walked, he walked. If I ran like a fiery meteor, 566 00:52:01.840 --> 00:52:07.239 he ran like a fiery meteor. But yet his pace throughout was steady, 567 00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:09.559 like the figures that pass in front of the magic lantern, and his 568 00:52:09.639 --> 00:52:15.960 footsteps were noiseless. I saw or fancied. I saw a light. With 569 00:52:15.119 --> 00:52:19.599 frantic effort, I bounded towards it. I seized a garden gate. It 570 00:52:19.679 --> 00:52:22.159 would not yield. I felt a figure glide up to me, and a 571 00:52:22.239 --> 00:52:30.159 warm breath whispered in my ears these ominous words I hope you're not fatigued, 572 00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:37.880 sir. It was my silent friend, my evening tormentor. I loathed him. 573 00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:43.360 My blood boiled. I strove to speak and failed. I strove again 574 00:52:44.119 --> 00:52:49.239 and prevailed. Do you wish to insult me? No, certainly not, 575 00:52:49.440 --> 00:52:53.800 sir, said my tormentor. I only hoped you are not fatigued, sir. 576 00:52:54.639 --> 00:53:00.920 Good night, so saying, he politely bowed and glowed, lighted noiselessly 577 00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:13.079 away in the mist. In the early fall of nineteen sixty nine, a 578 00:53:13.159 --> 00:53:17.119 woman was walking her little dog down Swain's Lane twice a day ritual the two 579 00:53:17.199 --> 00:53:22.079 performed, when suddenly the little pup began growling and raising a fuss at something. 580 00:53:22.239 --> 00:53:27.519 Through the gate of the West Cemetery, the woman claimed to see a 581 00:53:27.880 --> 00:53:32.960 tall, dark man floating without touching the ground. To her horror, it 582 00:53:34.079 --> 00:53:42.079 started floating toward her, but suddenly disappeared before reaching the gate. It was 583 00:53:42.119 --> 00:53:46.800 around this period of time that the locale saw a discernible uptick in alleged encounters 584 00:53:46.880 --> 00:53:53.599 with phantasmal beings. One R. Dougherty wrote to the Hampstead and Highgate Express 585 00:53:54.159 --> 00:53:59.719 the ham and High reporting on one such entity at the Cemetery in nineteen seventy. 586 00:54:00.039 --> 00:54:05.639 There is, without a doubt a ghost of when and whom he originated? 587 00:54:05.719 --> 00:54:07.920 I do not know. Many tales are told, however, about a 588 00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:14.639 tall man in a hat who walks across Swain's Lane just disappears through a wall 589 00:54:14.760 --> 00:54:19.159 into the cemetery. Local superstition also has it that the bells and the old 590 00:54:19.239 --> 00:54:27.800 disused chapel inside the cemetery toll mysteriously whenever he walks. This figure would go 591 00:54:27.880 --> 00:54:30.960 on to be described several more times by several different people over the years. 592 00:54:31.679 --> 00:54:37.159 November nineteen eighty five, a woman by the name of Janet Morril claims she 593 00:54:37.239 --> 00:54:40.280 saw some kind of tall, shadowy figure Vanish near the northernmost gate to the 594 00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:47.239 West Cemetery. November nineteen ninety one, Declan Walsh described a similar sighting while 595 00:54:47.320 --> 00:54:52.920 walking around six thirty am, saying he saw a tall man dressed in black 596 00:54:53.079 --> 00:54:58.639 Victorian style of clothing, including a cape and top hat. He walked directly 597 00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:01.400 towards the gates. Gates were locked and shot, but he walked straight through 598 00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:06.840 them without altering his stride, nor did he make any sounds. I walked 599 00:55:06.840 --> 00:55:12.079 past him on the other side and could see no one else present. Two 600 00:55:12.119 --> 00:55:15.719 thousand and four, month unspecified, Patsy Langley was on a tour of Highgate 601 00:55:16.079 --> 00:55:21.079 when some other tourists remarked about seeing a tall man in a black cloak who 602 00:55:21.159 --> 00:55:24.880 had disappeared near the north gate of the West Cemetery. They thought it had 603 00:55:24.920 --> 00:55:29.880 been an actor hired just to spook tourists, but the guide at the time 604 00:55:30.039 --> 00:55:35.679 assured them this was not the case. Patsy went on to author the book 605 00:55:35.719 --> 00:55:42.039 The Highgate Vampire Casebook in two thousand and seven. August two thousand and five, 606 00:55:42.159 --> 00:55:45.400 a man named Martin Trent was walking home one night down Swain's Lane when 607 00:55:45.440 --> 00:55:50.119 he caught sight of a man not too far ahead of him. He recalled 608 00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:52.840 it being a hot summer night, but the man was dressed in black clothing, 609 00:55:52.960 --> 00:55:59.039 including a large overcoat and top hat. Though the man looked to be 610 00:55:59.519 --> 00:56:07.239 early, his face was gaunt with high cheekbones. Wanting to avoid the figure 611 00:56:07.239 --> 00:56:09.800 as much as possible, Trent crossed to the opposite side of the lane, 612 00:56:10.519 --> 00:56:15.280 but just when he was passing it, I could swear I heard him say 613 00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:17.800 to me, good evening to you, sir, in what sounded at first 614 00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:22.920 like a strange accent, but which I later thought just sounded old fashioned. 615 00:56:24.039 --> 00:56:29.039 The other peculiarity about his greeting was that it didn't seem to come from his 616 00:56:29.239 --> 00:56:34.440 direction as such, but rather seemed to be hissed right next to my ear, 617 00:56:35.679 --> 00:56:38.880 which, given the ordinariness of the words, still gave me a jolt. 618 00:56:39.719 --> 00:56:43.599 I'm not even sure if the voice was male or female. Now it 619 00:56:43.719 --> 00:56:52.079 seemed to be oddly neutral as far as I can remember, though he had 620 00:56:52.159 --> 00:56:55.719 trouble remembering much else. He went on to say that after walking a little 621 00:56:55.760 --> 00:57:00.280 farther down the lane, he felt compelled to turn and look back. As 622 00:57:00.360 --> 00:57:05.800 he did, he witnessed the figure glide through the closed gates of the East 623 00:57:05.920 --> 00:57:15.559 Cemetery. Additional sightings of a strange figure in black or sometimes of black, 624 00:57:15.159 --> 00:57:22.239 could be connected, though they didn't report a top hat. In nineteen sixty 625 00:57:22.320 --> 00:57:25.280 five, an ex army officer by the name of Brian Bourne was traveling down 626 00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:30.519 Swing's Lane near the north gate when he noticed what appeared to be black treacle 627 00:57:30.639 --> 00:57:36.639 flowing down and running over the wall. It touched the ground and actually flowed 628 00:57:36.760 --> 00:57:39.079 like a big black pool of liquid into the center of the path. About 629 00:57:39.119 --> 00:57:44.559 six feet before me, there was an icy coldness, which grew more intense 630 00:57:44.679 --> 00:57:50.480 with the passing seconds. Literally an arctic cold with dusk falling full on the 631 00:57:50.519 --> 00:57:54.519 perimeter wall. The path was in shadow, but there was a shadow discernible 632 00:57:54.840 --> 00:58:00.480 within that shadow. The most horrible part was, and I still have nightmares 633 00:58:00.480 --> 00:58:02.840 about it, still wake up in a cold sweat. It reared up. 634 00:58:04.920 --> 00:58:08.119 I'd estimated its height at seven or eight feet. I'm five feet eight inches 635 00:58:08.199 --> 00:58:14.000 tall, and it towered over me. It was enormous. It was neither 636 00:58:14.159 --> 00:58:20.360 solid nor transparent. My overall impression was that it was a black figure wearing 637 00:58:20.519 --> 00:58:24.599 dark garments which flowed and stirred in the wind. But there was no wind. 638 00:58:25.800 --> 00:58:31.159 The edges of what it was wearing were moving, no face where eyes 639 00:58:31.199 --> 00:58:35.119 would have been if it were human. There were just two red pits, 640 00:58:35.840 --> 00:58:38.719 red glows, and I was very conscious that it was looking at me. 641 00:58:39.679 --> 00:58:44.800 At that point I realized that I was up against an entity that was both 642 00:58:44.920 --> 00:58:51.159 powerful and malignant. It was radiating evil. That's the only way I could 643 00:58:51.199 --> 00:58:55.920 describe it. This wasn't a ghost, it was an entity. Attempts have 644 00:58:57.079 --> 00:59:00.440 been made to put a name to this Victorian garbage gentleman, with mixed results. 645 00:59:01.880 --> 00:59:07.239 One possible culprit that has been put forth is Henri Fuinley. In December 646 00:59:07.360 --> 00:59:13.519 of eighteen fifty six, a cemetary worker stumbled upon the body of mister Fuinley 647 00:59:14.280 --> 00:59:19.360 near the site of the present day East Cemetery gate. The victim had taken 648 00:59:19.440 --> 00:59:23.000 his own life by shotgun, and police found his name and some notes inside 649 00:59:23.079 --> 00:59:29.679 his black clothing. The twenty year old son of a dentist was buried in 650 00:59:29.800 --> 00:59:35.920 the West Cemetery. An untimely death, the right period, clothing and the 651 00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:39.159 right location have led some to believe this is the phantom that haunts the lane. 652 00:59:40.360 --> 00:59:45.960 But another name has been put forth as well, that of William Blake. 653 00:59:45.599 --> 00:59:51.519 No, not that William Blake. This one was around a good century 654 00:59:51.599 --> 00:59:55.599 before the poet of the same name. This Blake lived in a cottage on 655 00:59:55.719 --> 01:00:00.960 Swain's Lane, near the south end of the cemetery, and tried unsuccessfully to 656 01:00:00.119 --> 01:00:06.320 purchase and run different establishments in the area, including an orphanage, a school 657 01:00:06.800 --> 01:00:10.199 houses, and a pub just north of the cemetery called the Flask. He 658 01:00:10.400 --> 01:00:15.360 died while in a debtors prison, and the location of his grave is unknown. 659 01:00:15.920 --> 01:00:21.719 Unhappy in life, some have speculated that his restless spirits still roams the 660 01:00:21.840 --> 01:00:28.159 land he loved and tried to make work for him. I asked John, 661 01:00:28.239 --> 01:00:32.519 if he was familiar at all with the man and the hat, he'd fit 662 01:00:32.679 --> 01:00:37.599 right in, wouldn't he. I think he may have been one of those 663 01:00:37.800 --> 01:00:45.320 figures that knocked around in the late sixties early seventies with the Farrant Manchester Highgate 664 01:00:45.440 --> 01:00:58.079 Vampire. But personally, and I know no more than that. They always 665 01:00:58.119 --> 01:01:01.760 build fences around gardens, of course, to keep people out. High agreed 666 01:01:02.960 --> 01:01:07.559 they always build all round a prison because if they didn't, well, where 667 01:01:07.639 --> 01:01:15.360 would they be With that? There is nothing amiss, But will you please 668 01:01:15.440 --> 01:01:22.320 tell me this? Why will the wall round the grave yard when nobody wants 669 01:01:22.440 --> 01:01:29.159 to go in? Why will the wall round the grave yard when nobody wants 670 01:01:29.239 --> 01:01:34.920 to go out? It may be a beautiful haven of rist, but you 671 01:01:35.199 --> 01:01:39.320 know that he'll be a permanent guest. So why will there around a greave 672 01:01:39.960 --> 01:01:47.000 yard when nobody wants to go in? Here's the contortionist, belitted peete. 673 01:01:47.639 --> 01:01:53.320 He tried his best to make boats in meat here either drinker the harbor of 674 01:01:53.599 --> 01:01:59.320 him he'd be with the smell, but he couldn't say when. Ah, 675 01:02:00.039 --> 01:02:05.039 we'll take another quick break, and when we return we get a little vampiric 676 01:02:06.159 --> 01:02:16.719 stay tuned will a blinking great slab on his chest, heads off, another 677 01:02:16.920 --> 01:02:23.320 new member signed on, heads off at Wall around the Grave God, when 678 01:02:23.440 --> 01:02:30.719 nobody wants to go in? Why the lore out of the grave? God, 679 01:02:30.920 --> 01:02:36.920 when nobody wants to go out in a nice wooden coat to mcguill'stand any 680 01:02:36.960 --> 01:02:42.920 screen they make pretty certain you're sure during me so WI no wall around the 681 01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:50.760 lave yard when nobody wants to go in, that's on at dog, that's 682 01:02:50.840 --> 01:02:57.000 all at no believe it or not. The dark figure in the hat is 683 01:02:57.119 --> 01:03:02.000 not the most famous paranormal star of Highgates Terry, despite its many supposed sightings. 684 01:03:02.440 --> 01:03:07.679 It plays second fiddle to another entity that is much less tangible, even 685 01:03:07.719 --> 01:03:13.320 in ghostly terms, although some folks would argue they're perhaps the same, being 686 01:03:16.119 --> 01:03:22.000 as John just mentioned, the real popularity of Highgate's paranormality came to fruition in 687 01:03:22.119 --> 01:03:28.800 the seventies with a couple individuals their exploits in the public atmosphere and pop culture 688 01:03:28.880 --> 01:03:34.119 of the time. The Highgate Vampire is the most well known spook attached to 689 01:03:34.199 --> 01:03:37.880 the cemetery, though its legend has gotten some help from a famous feud, 690 01:03:38.440 --> 01:03:45.079 famous actor, and famous escapades of other people. This portion of Highgate's history 691 01:03:45.199 --> 01:03:51.960 was made possible by occultist and author David Farrant. After being approached by Joe 692 01:03:52.079 --> 01:03:57.519 Meek and hearing Meek's supposed EVPs. Farrant founded the British Psychic and Occult Society 693 01:03:58.119 --> 01:04:01.119 and explored Highgate to get to the bottom of the claims made by Meek and 694 01:04:01.199 --> 01:04:08.679 others. One of these others told Farrant about an experience where a tall, 695 01:04:09.159 --> 01:04:15.440 dark gray specter had psychically drained him of energy and kept him hypnotically fixated until 696 01:04:15.519 --> 01:04:21.239 it finally disappeared. Farrant had also been told first hand of the experience the 697 01:04:21.360 --> 01:04:26.280 Lady with the Little Dog had in nineteen sixty nine, and on December twenty 698 01:04:26.360 --> 01:04:30.400 first of that same year, he struck out at eleven pm to investigate the 699 01:04:30.440 --> 01:04:34.679 cemetery for himself. Lucky for him, the excursion was not in vain, 700 01:04:35.320 --> 01:04:39.280 for while he was trying to make out what lay beyond the bars of the 701 01:04:39.360 --> 01:04:44.280 North Gate, he claimed to have spotted a seven foot tall, dark humanoid 702 01:04:44.360 --> 01:04:49.239 figure that began to float towards him, stopping a mere three yards away. 703 01:04:49.880 --> 01:04:55.920 Farrant described two faint points of light that he took for eyes on a featureless, 704 01:04:56.360 --> 01:04:59.719 dark mass of a face, and, as he called it, a 705 01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:05.000 psichic attack. This account is detailed in his wife, Della's twenty fourteen book 706 01:05:05.360 --> 01:05:11.159 Haunted Highgate. David's account of the experience was relayed in a letter to the 707 01:05:11.239 --> 01:05:15.199 Ham and High on February sixth, nineteen seventy, and differed slightly, saying 708 01:05:15.320 --> 01:05:19.880 the date was Christmas Eve and that he had actually seen the entity three times 709 01:05:19.960 --> 01:05:27.280 between the twenty fourth and the writing of the letter. His occult Society BPOs 710 01:05:27.480 --> 01:05:31.199 conducted investigations at the cemetery, which some have said is where the two additional 711 01:05:31.320 --> 01:05:38.000 sightings came from, but David graciously conveyed they were his sightings to protect the 712 01:05:38.079 --> 01:05:44.559 members from ridicule. His popularity grew, and even the Ham and High staff 713 01:05:44.639 --> 01:05:48.480 began going to him for opinions about other paranormal topics. It led to an 714 01:05:48.519 --> 01:05:54.559 innocuous request printed in the paper with his article, asking for additional reports of 715 01:05:54.599 --> 01:06:00.280 the phantom figure from the public. Several accounts were submitted, including semi mentioned 716 01:06:00.280 --> 01:06:04.039 earlier. An interest in the whole affair began to Swell and Highgate and beyond. 717 01:06:05.440 --> 01:06:11.679 During this period, Farrant continued to explore the overgrown grounds, claiming to 718 01:06:11.760 --> 01:06:17.960 find evidence of Satanic worship and rituals in tombs and catacombs described as what sounds 719 01:06:18.079 --> 01:06:23.960 like the beer mausoleum. He claimed to have found and photographed an inverted pentagram 720 01:06:24.159 --> 01:06:29.880 made from chalk or salt, along with what were deemed magical symbols to summon 721 01:06:30.239 --> 01:06:35.079 quote unquote the old Kings of Hell. I mean, if there's more than 722 01:06:35.119 --> 01:06:40.760 one king, isn't the title kind of meaningless? Anyway? When more than 723 01:06:40.800 --> 01:06:45.719 a couple corpses of foxes were discovered, more or less ex sanguinated and with 724 01:06:45.920 --> 01:06:50.039 no noticeable cause of death, the paper ran headlines like why do the foxes 725 01:06:50.119 --> 01:06:56.519 die? And does a wampier walk in Highgate? They ran it as a 726 01:06:56.639 --> 01:07:01.760 joke, while letters about experiences came in the news thought it was a jolly 727 01:07:01.800 --> 01:07:08.960 good time. The locals begged to differ. A loose vampire was the most 728 01:07:09.079 --> 01:07:13.920 logical conclusion drawn by the public, and Farrant was invited on a Thames TV 729 01:07:14.079 --> 01:07:19.400 broadcast for an interview about it all. Farrant was careful to not mention the 730 01:07:19.440 --> 01:07:24.440 word vampire, as he thought it was a bridge too far for an explanation, 731 01:07:25.039 --> 01:07:29.639 but another guest on the show absolutely latched onto the term and idea and 732 01:07:29.760 --> 01:07:34.119 poured petrol on a swelling fire of a situation. That was Sean Manchester, 733 01:07:34.599 --> 01:07:41.320 a self proclaimed skilled vampire hunter, exorcist, descendant of Lord Byron and bishop 734 01:07:41.400 --> 01:07:45.400 of the Old Catholic Church that is an offshoot of Catholicism that did not believe 735 01:07:45.519 --> 01:07:50.320 in the infallibility of the pope and also holds more liberal views on social issues. 736 01:07:51.960 --> 01:07:57.199 To him, the experiences were indicative of a king vampire and that it 737 01:07:57.239 --> 01:08:00.199 should be killed with a stake through the heart, de keptation and burning. 738 01:08:01.440 --> 01:08:06.559 The remarks were heard throughout Highgate and beyond, and on Friday, March thirteenth 739 01:08:06.840 --> 01:08:12.880 of nineteen seventy, hundreds of people eager to slay the vampire, assaulted the 740 01:08:12.960 --> 01:08:17.840 gates of Highgate Cemetery. Police tried to hold back the throng but proved ineffective. 741 01:08:18.680 --> 01:08:24.000 A good deal of vandalism was perpetrated on the overgrown cemetery, but no 742 01:08:24.199 --> 01:08:29.279 vampire was ever found. A few months later, the century old corpse of 743 01:08:29.319 --> 01:08:33.479 a woman was found staked, beheaded and burnt in the cemetery, which concerned 744 01:08:33.600 --> 01:08:40.279 Farrant in regards to the violence committed to him. A malevolent entity needed to 745 01:08:40.319 --> 01:08:45.239 be exercised from the location. A few nights later, he and some other 746 01:08:45.319 --> 01:08:50.359 occult society members snuck into the cemetery to conduct a seance and possible banishment ritual. 747 01:08:51.680 --> 01:08:56.239 They brought incense, chalk, salt, candles, charcoal, and a 748 01:08:56.279 --> 01:09:00.800 piece of wood wrapped in white satin cord, supposedly to mark out the circle 749 01:09:00.920 --> 01:09:04.640 they needed to draw. After marking out a couple of circles and getting everything 750 01:09:04.760 --> 01:09:10.960 nice and seancey, the ritual was interrupted by the coppers, who arrested Farrant 751 01:09:11.039 --> 01:09:16.640 for the crime of vampire hunting. I guess the charges were dismissed by a 752 01:09:16.760 --> 01:09:19.560 judge, but it wouldn't be the last time he ran a foul of the 753 01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:26.079 law, which I'll circle back too shortly. In nineteen seventy three, all 754 01:09:26.199 --> 01:09:30.479 Hills seemed to break loose. Farran and Manchester had developed a rather contentious relationship, 755 01:09:30.800 --> 01:09:36.119 which resulted in rumors of a magician's duel a top Parliament Hill in April 756 01:09:36.159 --> 01:09:42.600 of that year. It never happened. Manchester later wrote in his nineteen eighty 757 01:09:42.640 --> 01:09:45.439 five work the Highgate Vampire that he had gotten into a part of the catacombs 758 01:09:45.479 --> 01:09:49.079 in nineteen seventy looking for the vampire's coffin, but had come up empty. 759 01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:53.920 Then, around the time of Faran's arrest, he had been led to a 760 01:09:54.000 --> 01:09:58.159 vault in the cemetery by a young psychic assistant, and making his way inside 761 01:09:58.199 --> 01:10:00.560 and prying the lid off the coffin. Therein, he claimed to glimpse the 762 01:10:00.680 --> 01:10:06.840 vampire he sought. Present at this unpleasant unboxing were some of his followers, 763 01:10:08.039 --> 01:10:12.079 who persuaded him to not drive the stake he had at the ready through the 764 01:10:12.159 --> 01:10:15.720 corpse's heart, as the law was not on their side in regards to messing 765 01:10:15.800 --> 01:10:21.399 with human remains. Instead, they performed an exorcism ritual and left a crucifix 766 01:10:21.479 --> 01:10:26.680 in some holy water inside, and said the cemetery officials bricked it up after 767 01:10:27.760 --> 01:10:30.800 Farrant meanwhile became fixated on the police, as a friend of his had gotten 768 01:10:30.880 --> 01:10:34.920 roughed up a bit by them. He sent them voodoo dolls and not very 769 01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:40.640 kind messages, which made him a target when police later found a headless corpse 770 01:10:40.720 --> 01:10:45.479 in a car in his area, though someone else confessed to the prank. 771 01:10:46.119 --> 01:10:51.800 Police found photos of vandalized graves in his possession, and a judge sentenced them 772 01:10:51.840 --> 01:10:57.199 to almost five years in prison. He served two and a half before being 773 01:10:57.319 --> 01:11:00.600 let out for good behavior. He always maintained that the voodoo dolls were his 774 01:11:00.840 --> 01:11:06.760 doing, but the vandalism was from Satanists. The feud with him and Manchester 775 01:11:06.920 --> 01:11:13.199 continued, with more magicians, duels bandied about but never fought in the late 776 01:11:13.279 --> 01:11:17.279 seventies, and jabs thrown at each other through print and media up until Farren's 777 01:11:17.319 --> 01:11:24.199 death in twenty nineteen. Manchester had an interesting encounter in nineteen eighty two, 778 01:11:24.720 --> 01:11:28.399 which was detailed in his book. He claimed to have tracked down the vampire 779 01:11:28.439 --> 01:11:32.159 in an old, abandoned house in London's crouch End. There he staked it 780 01:11:32.199 --> 01:11:36.560 through the heart and burnt the body, but his psychic assistant became possessed by 781 01:11:36.600 --> 01:11:43.319 the vampire, causing her to morph into a giant spider. After a perilous 782 01:11:43.399 --> 01:11:46.520 fight, he managed to stake it as well, releasing his assistant from the 783 01:11:46.560 --> 01:11:54.840 possession. All according to Manchester, I was hesitant to ask John about the 784 01:11:54.880 --> 01:12:00.680 whole ordeal, as it's a touchy and not fondly remembered chapter in high Cemetery's 785 01:12:00.760 --> 01:12:04.199 history, as you can well imagine, but he graciously gave some things to 786 01:12:04.319 --> 01:12:10.920 think about that weren't related to the Farent Manchester feud, but could have contributed 787 01:12:10.960 --> 01:12:16.279 to the hysteria that sprang up in the seventies. I suppose one of the 788 01:12:16.359 --> 01:12:24.840 reasons that a charity upped and took over the place in the nineteen seventies was 789 01:12:24.960 --> 01:12:33.000 down to would you believe Dracula, Because in the nineteen sixties, you see 790 01:12:33.039 --> 01:12:39.319 the company that operated, the original company that operated the cemetery, though it 791 01:12:39.439 --> 01:12:44.720 wasn't it wasn't a working cemetery. They weren't burying people there. They wanted 792 01:12:44.760 --> 01:12:47.720 to make some money out of it, but without spending any money on it, 793 01:12:48.479 --> 01:12:53.199 and so one of the things they did was hire it out as a 794 01:12:53.399 --> 01:12:58.479 film set, a giant outdoor film set for a film company, a British 795 01:12:58.520 --> 01:13:02.640 film company that some of your older members may be able to recall called Hammer 796 01:13:02.920 --> 01:13:08.520 Hammer Horror. Hamma only made horror films, and what it did was it 797 01:13:08.640 --> 01:13:11.760 took all those horror films that you'd made, the Universal had made in the 798 01:13:11.880 --> 01:13:15.119 thirties. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Ghould as you know, all that kind 799 01:13:15.119 --> 01:13:17.920 of stuff, the Mummy and remade them all in the fifties and sixties in 800 01:13:18.319 --> 01:13:28.560 color, and it made eleven Dracula films at on location at Highgate. And 801 01:13:28.760 --> 01:13:30.680 I think you'd agree, David, having been there, it's a wonderful location 802 01:13:30.880 --> 01:13:35.159 for that kind of isn't it. Yeah, So Christopher Christopher Lee was there. 803 01:13:35.239 --> 01:13:41.199 Christopher Lee's great breakout role was as Dracular. I know he went on 804 01:13:41.319 --> 01:13:44.720 to do other things Lord of the Rings and all that, a few other 805 01:13:44.840 --> 01:13:51.000 things, indeed, but he started as a wonderful Dracula. And he was 806 01:13:51.399 --> 01:13:57.479 seen one of my colleagues who's my age, late sixties, early seventies, 807 01:13:57.800 --> 01:14:01.800 who was a child in those days, and they kids used to sort of 808 01:14:01.840 --> 01:14:05.079 climb over the wall and you know, play in in the cemetery like a 809 01:14:05.119 --> 01:14:10.600 big adventure playground, and he came across Dracula one day, you know, 810 01:14:10.760 --> 01:14:15.359 with the full fig in the in the in the cloak, with the with 811 01:14:15.479 --> 01:14:19.199 the with the with the with the fangs, the blood and it. Of 812 01:14:19.279 --> 01:14:25.279 course it was Christopher Lee in costume filming a scene, but to this little 813 01:14:25.359 --> 01:14:30.000 boy, it was Dracula. And so the word got out that Dracula lived 814 01:14:30.520 --> 01:14:40.840 in this deserted cemetery. And then, as you know, two guys came 815 01:14:40.880 --> 01:14:46.640 along called Sean Manchester and David Farrant, and they decided to perpetrate a quite 816 01:14:47.119 --> 01:14:55.319 brilliant hoax about the Highgate Vampire. Well for whatever reason, and personally, 817 01:14:55.439 --> 01:14:58.319 I think most of us believe it was because a book was in the offing 818 01:14:58.399 --> 01:15:01.920 and they wanted and I think they just I think they just wanted to see, 819 01:15:02.880 --> 01:15:08.520 you know, if they could hoodwig a sizeable population of North London. 820 01:15:08.600 --> 01:15:14.279 You know, the Highgate is one of the most expensive places to live in 821 01:15:14.319 --> 01:15:16.840 London because it's still a village, which in a big city, you know, 822 01:15:17.000 --> 01:15:21.239 has a village atmosphere, Hampstead and Highgate and these and there are some 823 01:15:21.479 --> 01:15:26.479 very very successful people there, very rich people, and I think I suspect 824 01:15:26.520 --> 01:15:31.119 there was a bit of devilment. So things started to be seen, just 825 01:15:31.319 --> 01:15:36.640 gently, just little things to begin with, just curious little events. Was 826 01:15:36.720 --> 01:15:43.079 that somebody flitting through the trees there that could be in a cloak, could 827 01:15:43.119 --> 01:15:48.119 be and so this idea of there being somebody, as it were, living 828 01:15:48.680 --> 01:15:55.720 in Highgate was seeded in people's minds and then it took off. People actually 829 01:15:55.800 --> 01:15:59.600 began to see for themselves. I think some of these things were deliberate. 830 01:15:59.680 --> 01:16:05.239 I think David and Sean did do stunts. Somebody dressed up, somebody did 831 01:16:05.319 --> 01:16:12.199 flit around and was therefore seen. But I think some people probably they were 832 01:16:12.279 --> 01:16:15.359 so sure that we're going to see something, actually saw something. And before 833 01:16:15.520 --> 01:16:21.760 very long this became just accepted. It was in the papers or the local 834 01:16:21.840 --> 01:16:26.560 folk would go down just to see, could they sparked, you know, 835 01:16:26.640 --> 01:16:32.239 the latest happening. And it became accepted that there was a vampire who lived 836 01:16:32.359 --> 01:16:35.680 at Highgate, you know, so we'd seen them on film, seen them 837 01:16:35.720 --> 01:16:43.119 on Cellar Lloyd, and here they were living there. So it wasn't very 838 01:16:43.239 --> 01:16:50.399 long before vampire hunters decided they would come up and try and find this vampire 839 01:16:50.840 --> 01:16:57.279 and put them too. Oh, most definitely. They brought steaks, you 840 01:16:57.359 --> 01:17:03.920 know. And now you can't get to the underground tombs and the crypts, 841 01:17:03.960 --> 01:17:06.840 and you know, you just can't there just too much. You'd need an 842 01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:15.159 army to get underground. But what they did find was the catacombs. The 843 01:17:15.239 --> 01:17:19.239 catacombs are above ground. They just had some flimsy, you know, sort 844 01:17:19.279 --> 01:17:25.840 of iron work trail lists because they were guarded in their day, so you 845 01:17:25.920 --> 01:17:29.279 know, they were never worried about anybody breaking in because they were guarded. 846 01:17:30.680 --> 01:17:33.159 But now there was nobody there. The place was locked up, and so 847 01:17:33.520 --> 01:17:39.159 in they got. As you know, you've been into the catacombs, as 848 01:17:39.279 --> 01:17:43.720 I don't know, close on a thousand coffins. In those little niches, 849 01:17:43.800 --> 01:17:48.039 those so called loculie you could easily just pull a coffin out of the niche. 850 01:17:48.760 --> 01:17:53.279 What I should explain to your listeners, as I explained to you, 851 01:17:53.640 --> 01:17:57.960 was that all the people buried at Highgate were buried in lead lined coffins. 852 01:17:58.479 --> 01:18:02.800 The lead lining was there to keep in their decomposing gases. Because London was 853 01:18:02.840 --> 01:18:09.000 such a disgusting place. The air was so foul and pestilential. You know, 854 01:18:09.600 --> 01:18:12.600 to breathe it could kill you. The idea was, we don't need 855 01:18:12.640 --> 01:18:15.800 anymore, thank you very much, from hundreds of thousands of decomposing bodies, 856 01:18:15.880 --> 01:18:20.199 so put them in a leadline coffin to keep in their decomposing gases. Well, 857 01:18:20.279 --> 01:18:29.720 what the vampire hunters discovered was that the lead had indeed kept in decomposing 858 01:18:29.800 --> 01:18:34.199 gases, but at the same time it had kept out moisture and air. 859 01:18:34.920 --> 01:18:39.279 So when they cut open the lead. The lead is soft. It wasn't 860 01:18:39.319 --> 01:18:43.039 meant to be defensive. It was meant to just to contain inside. More 861 01:18:43.079 --> 01:18:48.199 often than not was a body a slightly mummified body, a desiccated body. 862 01:18:48.279 --> 01:18:51.880 The soft tissue had gone, but the skin and the bones, you know, 863 01:18:53.000 --> 01:18:56.600 the clothes, the eyes, the hair would all be there. And 864 01:18:56.800 --> 01:19:02.520 if you're a vampire hunter, perfect you had an a corpse to put a 865 01:19:02.600 --> 01:19:05.640 steak in the heart, and that's what they began to so, but this 866 01:19:05.800 --> 01:19:11.359 sort of news got out that if you wanted a body for any reason, 867 01:19:11.479 --> 01:19:15.760 there were plenty going begging at Highgate Cemetery. They don't want to stop. 868 01:19:15.800 --> 01:19:19.359 You just come in at nighttime, let yourself in through the trellis, take 869 01:19:19.479 --> 01:19:25.079 down a coffin, bring a good knife, a pen knife, and cut 870 01:19:25.159 --> 01:19:30.119 into them. There you'd have a body. And so hundreds of bodies, 871 01:19:30.560 --> 01:19:36.039 a couple of hundred to be exact, were removed by voodoo worshippers, by 872 01:19:36.600 --> 01:19:42.560 Satanists, you know, by black magic as a church of black magic that 873 01:19:42.720 --> 01:19:46.920 came in and they were not like the vampire hunters who were just trying to 874 01:19:47.079 --> 01:19:50.159 shove a steak, and so they were taking the bodies away for sort of 875 01:19:50.239 --> 01:19:55.199 weird rituals. And what happened to bring everybody up to dat, as I 876 01:19:55.279 --> 01:19:58.640 told you when you came round, David, was that didn't always take them 877 01:19:58.760 --> 01:20:02.279 away. Maybe they were just but two or three bodies over the months were 878 01:20:02.359 --> 01:20:09.279 left behind. One of a little servant woman was taken up by local school 879 01:20:09.359 --> 01:20:12.640 children, girls school children as a sort of doll that they played with. 880 01:20:13.319 --> 01:20:16.720 And then a couple of the blokes and male corpses had their heads kicked off 881 01:20:16.800 --> 01:20:21.399 so that local lads who were in there could play football with their heads. 882 01:20:23.720 --> 01:20:28.800 And yeah, this got into the local newspapers, then into the national newspapers. 883 01:20:29.319 --> 01:20:32.159 You know, here's Highgate Cemetery and here's the local children playing with some 884 01:20:32.319 --> 01:20:39.000 of its corpses. Big, big, big to do. And that's where 885 01:20:39.119 --> 01:20:44.880 that's what spurred some local women, local women in Highgate to trace the company, 886 01:20:45.880 --> 01:20:49.079 take it to court, challenge it to run the cemetery properly. And 887 01:20:49.239 --> 01:20:54.159 when they demurred, they said no one could run it properly. It would 888 01:20:54.199 --> 01:20:57.439 require far too much money to restore. They said, well, we don't 889 01:20:57.479 --> 01:21:00.159 intend to spend any money. We intend to get tears to do everything, 890 01:21:00.399 --> 01:21:06.039 which they did. As a judge awarded them ownership ownership transferred into seventy six 891 01:21:06.119 --> 01:21:12.560 to the charity and it's been Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust ever since. And 892 01:21:12.840 --> 01:21:16.479 lucky for all of us that was the case. So you can see how 893 01:21:16.840 --> 01:21:24.000 coupling and occultist feud with a horror film location, well preserved bodies and sensational 894 01:21:24.119 --> 01:21:28.319 headlines might have whipped up the general public into a bit of a frenzy. 895 01:21:29.159 --> 01:21:33.199 I don't think anyone's ever said Christopher Lee specifically was the tall, dark entity 896 01:21:33.319 --> 01:21:38.920 some folks ran across in their accounts as among his many talents, I don't 897 01:21:38.960 --> 01:21:41.840 think he could vanish through a gate, though I wouldn't put it past him, 898 01:21:42.439 --> 01:21:48.159 but his imposing figure could have inspired some imaginations at the time. Let's 899 01:21:48.199 --> 01:21:53.720 break down some final thoughts as the sun begins to set on this particular episode. 900 01:22:00.319 --> 01:22:06.239 Marnio fella, I've been through all of school on felling everything in about 901 01:22:06.319 --> 01:22:15.159 the Golden But when not the neighbor that goes to walk time on my word 902 01:22:15.720 --> 01:22:25.720 all that brainyard life, falling through the rain yard, I could I'm falling 903 01:22:25.840 --> 01:22:34.359 in the side arm I just frost again. Lord A mercy take away and 904 01:22:34.640 --> 01:22:44.800 breenyard line as a quick side note I mentioned it earlier, but there's a 905 01:22:44.880 --> 01:22:48.720 pub a block north of the cemetery called the Flask. As with many locations 906 01:22:48.800 --> 01:22:54.960 surrounding the cemetery places, I purposefully admitted from this episode so I could focus 907 01:22:55.039 --> 01:23:00.119 only on the cemetery itself. The pub is said to be haunted, The 908 01:23:00.199 --> 01:23:03.720 apparition of a cavalier is said to show itself from time to time before vanishing 909 01:23:03.840 --> 01:23:10.439 through a pillar inside, and a Spanish barmaid supposedly hanged herself in the basement, 910 01:23:10.800 --> 01:23:15.800 where some folks have reported feeling air blown on their necks in substantial cold 911 01:23:15.880 --> 01:23:23.800 spots. I had lunch at the Flask after visiting the cemetery. I did 912 01:23:23.880 --> 01:23:28.039 not experience anything odd, and at the time, almost a year to the 913 01:23:28.159 --> 01:23:32.279 date prior to recording this, I had no idea the place was supposed to 914 01:23:32.279 --> 01:23:38.079 be haunted. What I can say, however, is that the food and 915 01:23:38.239 --> 01:23:42.680 atmosphere were both great, and I highly recommend stopping in there if you're in 916 01:23:42.720 --> 01:23:49.039 the area. So are there phantoms roaming Swain's Lane, living shadows in the 917 01:23:49.079 --> 01:23:56.920 west, cemetery unquiet specters in the east. The evidence comes in anecdotes and 918 01:23:57.039 --> 01:24:02.640 a few blurry photos as I always say anecdotes are good for drawing attention to 919 01:24:02.760 --> 01:24:09.920 something so investigation can begin, but they are not reliable evidence. If a 920 01:24:09.960 --> 01:24:14.840 million people told a million similar stories, they could still all be wrong, 921 01:24:15.199 --> 01:24:20.560 mistaken, or worse line, anecdotes give us a place to start scrutiny, 922 01:24:20.760 --> 01:24:27.000 but with no way to verify or replicate the experience, they're pretty much useless. 923 01:24:27.039 --> 01:24:32.239 Otherwise, the photos are better, but again unreliable as they are subjective, 924 01:24:32.439 --> 01:24:43.920 especially in today's world of advanced tech. Away that break, I find 925 01:24:43.960 --> 01:24:47.239 it almost impossible to draw any conclusion from a photo, especially not having been 926 01:24:47.279 --> 01:24:53.760 there at the time it was taken. Paradolia plays heavily into interpretations, and 927 01:24:53.960 --> 01:24:59.359 something as innocuous as reflected light or cigarette smoke can cause people to lose their 928 01:24:59.439 --> 01:25:02.319 minds when viewed after the fact. So I don't put a lot of stock 929 01:25:02.399 --> 01:25:08.479 into blurry images and low lying mists, not that there are a ton of 930 01:25:08.520 --> 01:25:14.920 these involving Highgate anyway. Della Farran mentions in Haunted Highgate that starting around the 931 01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:18.600 eighties, as the cemetery began to be properly looked after again, reports of 932 01:25:18.680 --> 01:25:26.560 ghosts and experiences started to decline noticeably. There were still accounts from then through 933 01:25:26.720 --> 01:25:30.319 today, some of which I pointed out earlier, but the number of them 934 01:25:30.640 --> 01:25:39.399 definitely saw a downturn. The simplest explanation may not be the sexiest, but 935 01:25:39.520 --> 01:25:43.800 it's often the correct one. I don't have the answers to the slew of 936 01:25:43.920 --> 01:25:47.399 reports and the seventies fervor that kicked up in Highgate, but it seems like 937 01:25:47.840 --> 01:25:55.000 the most reasonable explanation is that a confluence of events, filming, occult Shenanigan's 938 01:25:55.199 --> 01:26:00.199 media, the science of panatology, which is the study of death, than 939 01:26:00.399 --> 01:26:04.920 the forensics involved. All these things contributed to the legend of a beautiful and 940 01:26:05.079 --> 01:26:12.800 creepy cemetery. Otherwise, the locals had no problem with the death and circumstances 941 01:26:12.880 --> 01:26:16.319 mister Geary made possible back in eighteen thirty nine. In fact, it was 942 01:26:16.399 --> 01:26:20.319 such a normal part of life the children made it into a playground of sorts. 943 01:26:21.359 --> 01:26:26.239 I can't imagine myself as a child saying, hey, look there's a 944 01:26:26.359 --> 01:26:30.760 dead body, let's take the head off and kick it around some Well, 945 01:26:30.840 --> 01:26:32.760 that's just children. They may not be American children, it's British children, 946 01:26:32.800 --> 01:26:35.319 you know. I mean, they can be very cruel. I have to 947 01:26:35.399 --> 01:26:41.039 say, you see I have seen, interestingly enough, doesn't happen so much 948 01:26:41.079 --> 01:26:46.760 these days, but there was a quite a few of these children came on 949 01:26:47.520 --> 01:26:53.159 tours. They hadn't been back, and they came on tours, some of 950 01:26:53.239 --> 01:26:59.119 which I took, and they brought polaroids. They'd taken photographs, particularly this 951 01:26:59.239 --> 01:27:02.520 little woman, the woman I told you was made into a sort of doll. 952 01:27:03.279 --> 01:27:10.039 So I have seen pictures of her, and you know, she doesn't 953 01:27:10.159 --> 01:27:15.520 look really like a dead body. She looks rather dull, like she's in 954 01:27:15.640 --> 01:27:18.199 her best clothes to be buried in, you know, to be and she's 955 01:27:18.399 --> 01:27:24.640 very tiny. She was tiny anyway, and she she's not much bigger than 956 01:27:25.319 --> 01:27:29.960 the doll. And so you know, they said to me, we didn't 957 01:27:30.039 --> 01:27:32.039 think of them as dead people. And they didn't look like that. They 958 01:27:32.119 --> 01:27:38.479 looked like dolls, a bit sort of porcelain like. So I mean that 959 01:27:38.720 --> 01:27:43.920 that's presumably why they didn't freak out. Anyway, they certainly didn't freak out. 960 01:27:45.239 --> 01:27:50.479 They she became really well known and all the all the girls apparently in 961 01:27:50.520 --> 01:27:55.039 the area who bunked off school. But by bunked off, justic KP. 962 01:27:55.159 --> 01:27:57.720 You don't use the phrase, I mean, you know, skipped school, 963 01:27:57.760 --> 01:28:00.680 got out of school, took it, took an afternoon off. Then they 964 01:28:00.680 --> 01:28:03.960 would climb over the wall to play in this in this wonderful they made. 965 01:28:04.159 --> 01:28:09.319 They made a den, you know, a sort of gang headquarters in the 966 01:28:09.439 --> 01:28:14.399 chapel and it was just a great adventure playground. And they came across this 967 01:28:14.520 --> 01:28:16.920 bonus, which was some corpses that you could play with. You could either 968 01:28:17.119 --> 01:28:26.800 take them around as dolls or you could kick them around as footballs. One 969 01:28:26.840 --> 01:28:30.920 thing I was curious about was if there was any ghostly activity in the region 970 01:28:30.079 --> 01:28:34.720 prior to the cemetery, A question that's probably impossible to answer by this point. 971 01:28:35.640 --> 01:28:40.720 John was honest with me, No, no, But but what I'm 972 01:28:40.880 --> 01:28:44.000 often asked, and I'm surprised you haven't asked me, is are their ghosts 973 01:28:44.039 --> 01:28:48.199 at Highgate today? And let me answer that by saying, I go to 974 01:28:48.319 --> 01:28:53.199 Highgate once maybe twice a week, and I go for a few hours, 975 01:28:54.000 --> 01:28:58.319 so I'm not there all the time. And I was on the board, 976 01:28:58.439 --> 01:29:00.359 on the charity board that runs the place for eight years. I had my 977 01:29:00.439 --> 01:29:04.039 own keys, so I've been there late at night. We board meetings would 978 01:29:04.039 --> 01:29:08.600 always be at eight o'clock and they'd finished sometimes eleven o'clock. I've walked through 979 01:29:09.159 --> 01:29:12.479 because there's a north gate which is nearer to my home, and I would 980 01:29:12.520 --> 01:29:16.520 walk through the entire cemetery in the pitch black to use the north gate and 981 01:29:16.760 --> 01:29:21.199 never ever experience anything. Right, So from my point of view, I'm 982 01:29:21.359 --> 01:29:26.159 sorry, I can't tell you anything. However, far more important than me 983 01:29:26.359 --> 01:29:30.479 as somebody who's there every day. And he's our grave digger. And his 984 01:29:30.640 --> 01:29:35.520 name is Victor. There's a great name, stayed out of Frankenstein. He 985 01:29:35.800 --> 01:29:43.760 looks David. He looks straight out of Central Casting. He looks like he's 986 01:29:44.039 --> 01:29:47.239 big guy, you know, six foot odd, burly guide digs all these 987 01:29:47.319 --> 01:29:51.720 graves as his father did before him. So Victor's been a grave diger for 988 01:29:51.840 --> 01:29:56.399 thirty years. His father thirty years before him, and Victor came along as 989 01:29:56.479 --> 01:30:01.239 a child. Victor is in no doubt that there are ghosts. He's seen 990 01:30:01.399 --> 01:30:08.560 them. He's shown me where he reckons. The most haunted spot in the 991 01:30:09.600 --> 01:30:14.600 in the cemetery is, which is a bricked up or sounds like something from 992 01:30:14.680 --> 01:30:17.760 Edgar Allan Poe, a bricked tomb. We don't know why it was bricked 993 01:30:17.840 --> 01:30:21.000 up. You can just see the outline of where they bricked it up. 994 01:30:21.279 --> 01:30:28.520 But he says around there or sorts of curious things, you know, implements, 995 01:30:28.600 --> 01:30:32.439 spades and things move around and float, and there's there's there's there's what's 996 01:30:32.600 --> 01:30:39.159 you know, sort of smoke and curious figures and things. There's no doubt, 997 01:30:39.600 --> 01:30:44.640 no doubt or whatsoever in Victor's mind that the place is haunted. That's 998 01:30:44.720 --> 01:30:47.319 cool. It's cool to get both perspectives of that. Is that one in 999 01:30:47.399 --> 01:30:51.239 the west side. It's in the west side, Yes, it's just when 1000 01:30:51.279 --> 01:30:56.680 you go in in the courtyard, you know the arcade there. There's a 1001 01:30:56.760 --> 01:31:00.479 sort of an arcade because it's where the ladies would have sad when there was 1002 01:31:00.520 --> 01:31:03.880 a committal. It was thought in Victorian times that the ladies if they saw 1003 01:31:04.960 --> 01:31:09.279 a coffin being lowered into the ground, they'd faint or you know, have 1004 01:31:09.359 --> 01:31:13.840 the vapors or whatever. Is all ridiculous, So they built these ar they're 1005 01:31:13.880 --> 01:31:17.720 called arcades because they're behind arches where they sat until the coffin was safely in 1006 01:31:17.760 --> 01:31:20.960 the ground, and then they would have walked up themselves into the cemetery, 1007 01:31:21.239 --> 01:31:27.119 you know, to put some earth on it. And so behind the arcade 1008 01:31:27.399 --> 01:31:34.199 are there is this clearly walled up tomb of some kind, and that's apparently 1009 01:31:34.840 --> 01:31:44.760 the the the other thing that Victor warns it's all about because because Victor is 1010 01:31:45.399 --> 01:31:48.079 because we don't have many committals these days, we don't have many burials. 1011 01:31:48.399 --> 01:31:54.479 So he's as much about re coffining people from two hundred years ago as he 1012 01:31:54.640 --> 01:31:57.680 is about, you know, putting people in the ground for the first time. 1013 01:31:58.479 --> 01:32:03.119 And he always says to me when we go into the catacombs, because 1014 01:32:03.119 --> 01:32:06.600 he has to if he's recoffining, obviously he has to move the old coffin 1015 01:32:06.640 --> 01:32:11.279 and then build a new one around it, you know, some wood on 1016 01:32:11.359 --> 01:32:14.680 the outside or whatever. And he says, whenever I move any of these 1017 01:32:14.760 --> 01:32:18.279 coffins, I always listen carefully, and you should do the same, John, 1018 01:32:18.800 --> 01:32:20.760 you know, just have a bit of a listen, because if you 1019 01:32:20.880 --> 01:32:28.119 hear a hissing sound, it's because the gas has found a way to escape, 1020 01:32:28.159 --> 01:32:30.760 because if you move the coffins, sometimes it does, and that quite 1021 01:32:30.800 --> 01:32:33.920 often, and in his case, it's happened more often than he would wish. 1022 01:32:34.720 --> 01:32:38.560 The thing will explode, you know, because the gas will yeah, 1023 01:32:38.880 --> 01:32:45.199 and then you'll be covered in two hundred year old Victorian dead people not happening. 1024 01:32:45.359 --> 01:32:46.960 That's happened to him. It's happened to him. Yes, it certainly 1025 01:32:47.079 --> 01:32:53.880 happens. He's very respectful about moving coffins and on the other subject there. 1026 01:32:53.920 --> 01:32:58.000 I always feel slightly embarrassed about telling this story. But about three or four 1027 01:32:58.000 --> 01:33:01.279 weeks ago I was taking a group of young lads around the cemetery. They 1028 01:33:01.319 --> 01:33:06.439 were from a local college, really nice young guys. They were doing Gothic 1029 01:33:06.520 --> 01:33:10.319 studies or something, you know, for one of their exams. They are 1030 01:33:10.319 --> 01:33:13.960 probably about sixteen or seventeen. And I was telling them, how, you 1031 01:33:14.039 --> 01:33:17.279 know, there's certain film has been made their Dracula has made there and more 1032 01:33:17.359 --> 01:33:21.039 recently, you know, Fantastic Beasts. So Johnny Debt was there, trying 1033 01:33:21.079 --> 01:33:26.079 to get their interest, you know, and saying do you have any questions? 1034 01:33:26.119 --> 01:33:28.319 And one of them said, yeah, can we see a dead body? 1035 01:33:29.159 --> 01:33:30.640 You know? And I said, well, we've got one hundred and 1036 01:33:30.680 --> 01:33:34.359 seventy thousand all them in here, but whether you'll see one anyway. When 1037 01:33:34.399 --> 01:33:40.399 we got into the catacombs, they all of course got their mobile phones out, 1038 01:33:40.720 --> 01:33:45.119 all of them had lights in the and they all went scurrying around looking 1039 01:33:45.359 --> 01:33:50.680 in all the loculi, which I don't do, you know, And of 1040 01:33:50.720 --> 01:33:55.720 course there's no lights in the catacombs. There wouldn't have been lights two hundred 1041 01:33:55.800 --> 01:34:00.279 years ago. Light electric light hadn't been invented. So it's just as you 1042 01:34:00.359 --> 01:34:03.199 remember, David is just a light well which lets in, so the light 1043 01:34:03.359 --> 01:34:10.479 is very atmospheric, but it's not very bright anyway. Would you believe About 1044 01:34:10.560 --> 01:34:16.600 three or four loculie away from where I was talking, they found a coffin 1045 01:34:16.720 --> 01:34:23.960 where the lead had worn away, you know, just just perished after two 1046 01:34:24.079 --> 01:34:30.960 hundred years, exposing the contents within, which was basically as you might imagine 1047 01:34:30.279 --> 01:34:36.760 a skeleton, very clear, and the scarlet or where they were absolutely cocker 1048 01:34:36.880 --> 01:34:41.720 hoop. They thought this was the very best thing they could ever have wished 1049 01:34:41.760 --> 01:34:46.439 for to have found, you know, a two hundred year dead Victorian on 1050 01:34:46.600 --> 01:34:54.159 their trip to Highgate Sermetery. Well, I know, and I'm going to 1051 01:34:54.199 --> 01:34:57.239 be honest with you, I do feel embarrassed. I should I tell people 1052 01:34:57.319 --> 01:35:00.199 this story, just like I've told you where we do our tours, and 1053 01:35:00.319 --> 01:35:02.199 I say to people, I'll show you where it is and you can borrow 1054 01:35:02.319 --> 01:35:08.159 my flashlight if you want to. But you know it's up to you, 1055 01:35:09.279 --> 01:35:13.840 David. Everybody goes. Everybody he was up to have a look. No 1056 01:35:14.000 --> 01:35:18.760 one, no one, you know, is demurs at all. Enough of 1057 01:35:18.880 --> 01:35:25.520 respect for the dead. We're going to have a gorp at a two hundred 1058 01:35:25.640 --> 01:35:29.239 year old skeleton. It's not something you see every day, for shure, 1059 01:35:29.279 --> 01:35:31.840 It's not something you see every day, you know, And it is natural. 1060 01:35:31.840 --> 01:35:38.520 I mean, nobody's nobody's arranged this. It's just happened and somebody happened 1061 01:35:38.520 --> 01:35:41.199 to see it. And I've actually mentioned it to Victor, so he will. 1062 01:35:41.279 --> 01:35:45.079 Indeed, at some point he will recough in that, but so far 1063 01:35:45.439 --> 01:35:49.800 he hasn't. So it's an extra treat for visitors on my tours. I'm 1064 01:35:49.840 --> 01:35:55.039 sorry that he wasn't there when you went round you. I looked at a 1065 01:35:55.079 --> 01:35:58.159 few of those. Yeah, I didn't see any skeletons. So yeah, 1066 01:35:58.199 --> 01:36:02.439 everybody listening, get out there now, Yeah now, to avoid disappointment. 1067 01:36:06.920 --> 01:36:12.520 Regardless of whether or not shadowy entities abide there, dark rituals have been performed 1068 01:36:12.560 --> 01:36:16.600 there, or strange individuals have had misadventures there, the fact remains that this 1069 01:36:16.760 --> 01:36:21.920 is an amazing location in an attraction not to be missed. I was so 1070 01:36:23.079 --> 01:36:27.880 glad I took the time to visit and get a tour. Words can hardly 1071 01:36:28.000 --> 01:36:32.840 describe the beauty and history on display there. It's truly a marvel. John 1072 01:36:32.960 --> 01:36:41.079 hits us with the info on visiting. We have a wonderful website Highgate Cemetery 1073 01:36:41.399 --> 01:36:45.520 dot org and that will tell you all about the cemetery. We have cameras 1074 01:36:45.600 --> 01:36:50.840 inside some of the mausoleums. We have lots of pictures before and after pictures. 1075 01:36:50.920 --> 01:36:55.720 You know what the place looked like, and then your money because when 1076 01:36:55.720 --> 01:36:58.720 you pay to go round, that's where the money goes. Where all volunteers 1077 01:36:58.720 --> 01:37:02.119 doesn't come to us. The tours. There are tours every day of both 1078 01:37:02.199 --> 01:37:08.199 sides, West and East. There's one every half an hour at weekends that's 1079 01:37:08.239 --> 01:37:15.319 when I'll be around and my colleagues just go on trip Advisor for the details, 1080 01:37:15.359 --> 01:37:17.640 the exact details, and look at what people say about the tours. 1081 01:37:18.000 --> 01:37:24.479 We are so proud of them. We get fantastic feedback. And so when 1082 01:37:24.520 --> 01:37:29.800 we started doing these tours, you know in Earnest, which was sort of 1083 01:37:29.960 --> 01:37:36.079 during COVID really three or four years ago, Entreprenvisor London has and I'm not 1084 01:37:36.159 --> 01:37:43.680 surprised, seventeen thousand things to do and Highgate Cemetery was the three hundred and 1085 01:37:43.880 --> 01:37:47.840 sixtieth best thing to do. Well because of people going on the tours and 1086 01:37:48.000 --> 01:37:54.720 liking them and you know, giving us good reviews, we're now thirtieth best 1087 01:37:54.880 --> 01:37:58.399 thing to do and we are determined to get up into that top twenty, 1088 01:37:58.439 --> 01:38:00.840 if not that top ten. I don't think I'm david. You've been so 1089 01:38:01.039 --> 01:38:04.119 you could say, and we're not in the same room. A continent, 1090 01:38:05.000 --> 01:38:10.920 an ocean divides, so you won't insult me. You know, they are 1091 01:38:11.039 --> 01:38:15.119 something special, aren't they, and they're well worth doing. It's absolutely I 1092 01:38:15.239 --> 01:38:18.319 do not miss if you go to London. This is just it's not that 1093 01:38:18.760 --> 01:38:23.680 far to get to. We took a train and a bus and a quick 1094 01:38:23.720 --> 01:38:27.199 little jaunt and that was it, and then all of a sudden you're just 1095 01:38:27.279 --> 01:38:31.840 in another world and it's absolutely not to be missed. And it's just a 1096 01:38:31.920 --> 01:38:36.640 lovely area just in general, the whole area around it. So you can 1097 01:38:36.760 --> 01:38:40.399 make a whole day of it if you want. But you got to, 1098 01:38:40.560 --> 01:38:44.640 yea, you make sure you take the tour of the West Cemetery if you 1099 01:38:44.760 --> 01:38:49.640 can get that opportunity, I'd say make time for the opportunity. Well, 1100 01:38:50.199 --> 01:38:55.479 it is very unusual. It's unlike anything you've probably seen before. As I 1101 01:38:55.560 --> 01:38:59.720 say, it's Grade one listed, so it's really special. Even in Britain 1102 01:39:00.119 --> 01:39:03.239 has a lot of special buildings, so it's going to be a one off 1103 01:39:03.439 --> 01:39:09.439 experience and it's brought brought to life, no part intended. You know, 1104 01:39:10.039 --> 01:39:13.560 you can't read about it, you know, or see videos of it. 1105 01:39:13.680 --> 01:39:17.600 You've really got to go and experience it and feel that atmosphere and the catacombs 1106 01:39:17.680 --> 01:39:25.239 and you know, the Egyptian Avenue and now I don't know how many thousands 1107 01:39:25.239 --> 01:39:28.920 of these tours that I've taken now over the years, I never ever tire 1108 01:39:29.520 --> 01:39:32.920 of taking people around and trying to, you know, get them to share 1109 01:39:32.960 --> 01:39:38.000 my enthusiasm, which they mostly do. With a lot of people volunteering, 1110 01:39:38.439 --> 01:39:41.960 you know, to join the ranks of US volunteers because they get it and 1111 01:39:42.079 --> 01:39:45.079 it is special and you know, so its future is secure, so many 1112 01:39:45.199 --> 01:39:49.000 people want to help in any way. Don't all do tours, but we 1113 01:39:49.119 --> 01:39:53.640 have landscape volunteers who you know, do all the all the all the gardens 1114 01:39:53.680 --> 01:39:59.560 and stuff. There's a huge workforce doing everything. So if anyone's interested in 1115 01:39:59.680 --> 01:40:05.760 volunte hearing we'll find a job for them, an amazing turnaround from almost fifty 1116 01:40:05.840 --> 01:40:10.880 years ago. If you visit and are lucky enough to get John as your 1117 01:40:10.920 --> 01:40:15.359 tour guide, please let him know after the tour that you heard about it 1118 01:40:15.399 --> 01:40:21.239 from David Flora of Blurry Photos podcast. He'll be well chuffed. That's Highgate 1119 01:40:21.319 --> 01:40:36.319 Cemetery in an overgrown, gorgeous gothic nutshell. My sincere thanks to John Waite 1120 01:40:36.520 --> 01:40:41.359 for taking the time to speak with me about the cemetery and being a wonderful 1121 01:40:41.399 --> 01:40:45.359 sport with the spooky stuff. And now it's time for the shadowy figure in 1122 01:40:45.439 --> 01:40:59.479 a top hat inhabiting your lane puns. Down by the cemetery, there lived 1123 01:40:59.479 --> 01:41:02.279 a guy Wayne, who used to dress up in a big overcoat top hat 1124 01:41:02.840 --> 01:41:06.399 and try and scare off people who just wanted a nice walk at night by 1125 01:41:06.479 --> 01:41:13.239 a quiet place. He spooked so many people a legend grew claiming a ghost 1126 01:41:13.479 --> 01:41:18.279 was haunting the cemetery and the narrow road that ran by it. Locals understood 1127 01:41:18.319 --> 01:41:23.720 what was happening, however, and soon words spread to just avoid the little 1128 01:41:23.800 --> 01:41:31.920 road because, as they said, it's Wayne's lane. Terry was a demon 1129 01:41:32.039 --> 01:41:38.119 who liked peace and quiet and never got upset about anything. One day, 1130 01:41:38.279 --> 01:41:42.760 he was sitting peacefully in Hell when suddenly a portal opened and sucked him through 1131 01:41:42.840 --> 01:41:46.199 to a suburb of London. Already disturbed, he looked around at a bunch 1132 01:41:46.239 --> 01:41:51.039 of naked, chanting occultists surrounding him. He got even more mad when he 1133 01:41:51.119 --> 01:41:56.800 found he was encased in a protective circle and couldn't move. When one of 1134 01:41:56.840 --> 01:42:00.560 the occultists began throwing holy water on him, he blew top and exploded the 1135 01:42:00.640 --> 01:42:05.239 circle and naked bodies went flying. With the chanting stopped, he popped back 1136 01:42:05.279 --> 01:42:10.439 into Hell. And that, friends, is why you never want a mess 1137 01:42:10.880 --> 01:42:19.600 with an irate Demonary, there are your terrible puns and another episode of blurry 1138 01:42:19.640 --> 01:42:24.880 Photos in the books. Hope you're all well and be on the lookout for 1139 01:42:25.079 --> 01:42:30.359 the annual ghost Stories episode coming soon. For this episode of Blurry Photos, 1140 01:42:30.479 --> 01:42:34.600 I have been the hammered horror David Flora, don't stop blurry even