Far spread below Death London War. It's cloud by day, its fire by
night, yet scarce with heavenly presence. There shrined in the smoke or pallid
light, dappled ashen stone, replete with twisting vines and dripping moss riddles,
The gentle nooks and slopes of Highgate Hill lacerated by reposeful meandering pathways like a
Gothic bazaar, presenting wares to passer by. Tombs, sculptures, headstones,
obelisks, and angels stand dutifully nestled within a dense quilt of trees, flowers
and shrubs. Mausoleums huddled together among architecture of various entrancing, exotic styles.
One moment you're in ancient Egypt, another ancient Rome. Incessant troops from that
vast throng withdraw to silent colonies, where houses low are fair and strong,
though ruins all that dwell in these, The air and atmosphere are old.
Here, though its inhabitants draw breath no more, History is alive and palpable,
shadowed and hushed. A world within a world. The silence of tens
of thousands of souls speaks volumes to those who pause and pay attention. Yet
within this hallowed hidden haven, not every soul is said to rest in peace.
Strange phantoms, black magic, anomalous mists, and a spade of vampire
hysteria have seemingly played this otherwise sublime necropolis for ages, prompting people to ask,
is this a beautiful parcel of perfect land for the dead or an area
of ominous oddness where the dead aren't quite as quiet as we think? Yet
neath the universal sky, bright children here too, run and sing, calm,
verter waxes, green and high in Graveside roses. Smell of spring in
Highgate Cemetery by William Allingham. We're visiting Highgate Cemetery on this episode of Blurry
Photo. Hey everyone, welcome to Blurry Photos and a very late Blurry Photober.
I'm your host, David Flora. I've got a good one here for
you, all about England's gorgeous Gothic gift to us, all Highgate Cemetery.
I had the absolute fortune to visit the cemetery last December, and I can
tell you right now, if you have the chance, go see it for
yourself. If you like this show, I would bet money you'd like Highgate
Cemetery. It's probably what you picture when you hear old Victorian cemetery, a
true mossy monument and charming over growth kind of spot, and like any good
imagined Victorian boneyard, it has its share of ghost stories, particularly involving a
supposed vampire and those that wish to destroy it. In this episode, I'll
go over the history of the cemetery from inception to modern day, some notable
features and inhabitants, and will discuss the many tales and experiences people have claimed
to have had there over the years. Now I was lucky enough to take
a guided tour of the cemetery and even luckier to have gotten John wait as
my guide, and that luck has continued as I asked John to join me
to discuss Highgates Cemetery on this episode and he agreed. John Waite is an
award winning British radio and television presenter working for the BBC. He's hosted such
shows as You and Yours Face, The Facts and Pick of the Week,
as well as adding his voice talents to The I Economist's weekly podcast. He
volunteers as a guide at Highgate Cemetery, which is where I met him and
shared his exuberance of this special place in the North suburb of London. How
long have you been given tours at Highgate? I suppose I've been giving tours
now for the past, say thirteen years. But I've been associated with the
cemetery since i first went there, and that's fifty years ago. I was
a young reporter. I was a trainee reporter for the BBC and then most
prestigious radio program is called the Today Program. It's still running. And I
was sent there fifty years ago as a trainee because Britain's most famous cemetery,
which had been closed for half a century, Highgate Cemetery was reopening for the
first time, so it was quite a big story. I was sent along
as a trainee to cover it and I was captivated by the place. So
I've been going back there for half a century. I've been taking people around
there for thirteen years. John'll be popping in here and there as we learn
all about Highgate and its mysteries, and I'm excited to share his knowledge with
you. And that knowledge goes all the way back to the early nineteenth century,
when Highgate was but a growing village around a toll house that's set upon
Highgate Hill, on one of the main northerly roads out of London Town.
While certainly not the oldest spot in the country, Highgate Cemetery can claim a
respectable pedigree of being almost two centuries old. The year was eighteen thirty two
when Parliament passed an act that encouraged establishment of private cemeteries outside of central London,
and seven short years later Highgate Hill was targeted as a spot for just
such a cemetery. There was a very good reason for this, as John
points out, well, what happened was something called the Industrial Revolution. Up
until that point in the history of the world, certainly in the history of
the Western world, in America, just as in my own country in the
United Kingdom, people lived at home, and they lived off the land,
and they grew what they needed, and nobody moved very much. And therefore
towns and cities weren't very big. And then the Industrial Revolution, which started
here in Britain, you know, with industrial processes and factories and jobs,
brought people literally in their millions, into the cities and into London in particular,
which grew in seventy years, David. It grew from the biggest city
in the world of about seventy thousand people into two and a half million.
And so one of the things that that means is this relatively small city ran
out of grave space and you could only be buried. In those days,
cremation was against the law in Britain. It wouldn't be legal for one hundred
years in the nineteen thirties. So somebody had to do something about grave space.
And an entrepreneur called Stephen gear He said, I'll build some private cemeteries.
This is in the teeth of opposition from the churches who thought you shouldn't
be making profits from the dead. So he built these rather opulent circle they
called the Magnificent Seven. Now, I know you Americans hijack that phrase for
a Cowboys film, but in fact, the original Magnificent seven, if you
go and look back in your history books, was what the press dubbed.
These seven pretty big private cemeteries in a big ring around London, way outside
of London in those days, four or five miles outside. And high Gate
was his baby. He was in charge of all seven. He was behind
all seven, but he was based at Highgate and he had big plans for
Highgate, and it was the most spectacular of them all. A city of
the dead. He intended to build a necropolis, a city of the dead,
with obviously carriageways and walkway sidewalks and buildings, and this was the most
sensational aspect. Buildings, of course, for the city of the dead wouldn't
be shops or offices like a normal city. The dead would have no need
of those. It was some funerary buildings, an Egyptian avenue of crypts,
a Greek circle of crypts, and the first Roman catacombs to be built in
Britain. Even traveling just a few miles outside the city was like being in
a whole different world. At the time, woods and farmlands sprawled among the
gentle hills north of the city, and the spot mister Geary chose for his
pet prize was Highgate Hill in the village of Highgate, a spot that was
traditionally a hunting estate for the Bishop of London, complete with a deer proof
hedge and a tall gate to get in and out. It was also right
next to an old trade route known as Swain's Lane. A swain is another
word for a shepherd, and the narrow road came to be known as Swain's
Lane due to its importance in providing a route from the farms of the area
down to Spittlefield's Market in the city, where pig farmers would take their stock.
At the time, the land belonged to a nobleman, one time Sheriff
of London, Mayor of London and several time MP Sir William Ashurst. Well,
it actually belonged to a local nobleman whose name I think I always forget
his name. Certain names you could never get near Nodle, and this is
one of these. I think his name was Slashes. But he had quite
a big sort of country home there and it was all grazing land. He
had sheep and a few catalytes, and he was planning on moving anyway.
And so when the company approached him, could they buy these initially seventeen acres
of his And they offered him a very good price. He agreed, And
the idea was that it was four or five miles from the center of London,
on the highest point north of London, you know, deep in the
countryside, good fresh air, lovely views over London. But you weren't,
you know, you weren't too close to London, which was a very dangerous
place to be close too, because there were too many people living there with
no proper s annotation or sewers or anything. So there was a lot of
awful things collar and knocking around in the air. So that's why it was
chosen to be so far outside of London. It was just safer to build
it there being a private cemetery and in a desirable spot. The cemetery was
not open to just any old tosser. Yes, it was no doubt about
it. It was very exclusive. I don't know how much. When I
give you the figures in British pounds it will mean to your sistance, But
there's sort of the cheapest, the very cheapest bargain basement interment would have been
forty pounds. Some people spent a lot more than that. I probably showed
you when I showed you around David. The mausoleum dedicated to a little girl
called Aida Beer. Her dad, her father spent eleven million pounds on that.
But so you had to have money to be buried there. It was
really quite an exclusive affair. Yes, you're right. The third of the
Magnificent Seven to open. It had room for thirty thousand graves for those with
the cash to buy one, though it seems one's pocketbook wasn't a deterrent in
visiting the lovely new Necropolis, and eighteen forty work called Cemetery Interment by A.
George Collison gives us a personal account of how some people didn't even need
a grave to enjoy the location. One is so much accustomed to associate ideas
of pleasure and holiday making with Highgate and its beautiful vicinity, that a cemetery
seems almost the last place we should think of meeting with there, And so
little is the feeling subdued by the general associations of the place that the author
has seen parties of pleasure, partaking of their slight refreshments in rural language called
picnic within the consecrated area. The cemetery on Highgate Hill provided wonderful views of
London miles down below, though some would say as opulent Mausoleum. After Mausoleum
was erected, those views became more and more scarce. But it was the
Victorian age where showing off was expected even after death. Oh no, I
think, to be honest, it was no way of demonstrating how successful you
were. I mean, the Victorian era made a number of people extremely rich,
indeed, and rich people you know quite like to show you know how
successful they've been. So with mister with mister Beer, his little daughter Ada,
as I say, they lived in the center of London. She breathed
the air of London, and like so many children and older folk, she
died she was eight. So he had all the money in the world.
He reckoned. He was the richest man in Victorian England. And I think
he was telling the truth. He'd said, I'm the richest man outside of
royalty. I mean that's of another order. But you know, the royals
inherit money and they pass it on. But for a self made man,
he reckoned. He was the richest in Victorian England, which means he was
very rich because a lot of money knocking around. Britain was the center of
the industrial Revolution. So he imported Carrara marble, which from the quarry in
Italy that Michaelangelo used. He used it for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Mister
Beer used it for the floor of his mausoleum for his daughter. I think
I must have urged you to look at the ceiling when you were when you
were there, David. And if the ceiling is glittering, for once,
all that glitters, all that glistens is gold, it's gold leaf. And
if it's not glistening but gleaming jewl like for once, there's semi precious stones.
That is where eleven million pounds will go on a mausoleum. And did
and I remember you pointing out some of the some of the tunes that had
bellmoral marble. You remember my tour. I'm very impressed. Yeah, the
most expensive stone probably in the world time, but he possibly even more expensive
than gold, was called balmarl pink granite. And I think if you're if
you you're British extraction already, you'll be you're probably beginning to understand why because
of that word Balmarl. For your listeners, many of whom will perhaps have
never heard of the place. Queen Victoria, who's you know, the queen
in the in the days we're talking of two hundred years ago, she had
discovered with her husband Prince Albert Scotland, British monarchs didn't particularly go to Scotland
or to Wales or to you know, the outer realms of the Kingdom.
But she discovered Scotland and fell in love with it and bought and built a
palace in Scotland where they went every year for a six week holiday, where
the current royal family go every year, the bow Moral Estate in in Ayrshire,
and it's really beautiful, very remote, and she loved it very much.
In the grounds of this royal estate was a quarry and this quarry,
mind a particular kind of stone, This Balmral pink granite is so apparently geologically
quite unique. Pink granite, isn't that rare, but this is the density
of some of the black basalt or whatever it is. I'm not a geologist,
but you can if you know your stone, you can tell your bal
Moral pink granite. Well. Of course, anything to do with the queen
in those days she was a superstar. She was the best known figure in
the world because British Empire ran a third of the world. She was on
all the coins, the all the currency, all the stamps, so anything
to do with her, you know, she was a superstar. So here's
this stuff that's mined in her quarried in her garden, which was fine until
one day again reading the Air of London. Her own husband dies, Prince
Albert, and she goes to balmarl their favorite home, and goes really a
bit bonkers. She goes a bit mad, and she stays up there in
mourning for twenty years. So it means all this stuff, all this stone
that used to be quarried in her back garden, obviously they can't do that
with her in residence. So the price of the stone goes through the roof.
And as you rightly recall, we have one or two people in Highgate
who had their family crypts made out of the stone, basically boasting showing this
is the most precious and elusive, rare stone in the world. But we
can get hold of it, and we have in a mere fourteen years.
The cemetery was home to more than ten thousand bodies, and a year later,
in eighteen fifty four, nineteen acres were purchased to supplement the quickly filling
necropolis. This parcel of the land was located just across Swain's Lane and became
known as the East Side, while the original was called the West. The
original cemetery built this City of the Dead built in finished in eighteen thirty nine
started in eighteen thirty six completely landscaped. It was so popular that within about
ten years it was full, and so they just bought the field across the
road as it were Swain's Lane, the lane that runs by the original cemetery.
They just bought the big field there and started an overspilled cemetery. That's
why there was two halves. The second half was not landscape, was not
particularly special architect truly or in any way. People just happy to be buried
at Highgate. It was by this stage it very quickly became the most popular
and the most prestigious place to be buried in Victorian Britain. So people were
just happy to say they were at Highgate. Though still away from the urban
miasma of the city, with no shortage of customers in sight, the cemetery
began to have trouble of its own. Writing in defense of having fresh water
sources in London, Barrister Edward Thomas Wakefield observed in eighteen fifty nine that some
of London's drinking water received quote the drainage of Highgate Cemetery, which percolates the
soil on the London side of the cemetery and flows towards the metropolis end quote,
which caused carbonation of the water and obviously posed a danger. Punctuating the
point by highlighting quote the hideous reality of the survivors of each generation immediately drinking
in solution the mortal remains of their predecessors. End goodness. I guess pouring
one out for the homies wasn't that wasteful after all? Sounds like you'd get
it back eventually. And an article in an eighteen sixty one edition of The
Ladies Companion spoke to the effect so many graves had on the area of Highgate.
I scarcely like to speak, for who desires to speak ill of that
which they have once well loved? And yet on most warm days the exhalations
from the Gratings and Swain's Lane have made us real with faintness. And for
all the wealth of flowers and their perfume, the digging of a grave makes
itself evident from one end of a walk to the other. So saturated is
the soil with the malaria of decay. It's a wonder so many picnic ers
took their tea amidst such conditions. Sounds like the list of dead at Highgate
included their sense of smell. But hey, it speaks to the beauty of
the place that people wanted to be around despite the unsavory atmosphere. I just
hope they got their tea water from somewhere on top of the hill. In
all honesty, the beauty of the place could have overcome any foulness, and
in a way that was by design. The original concept though, that this
Stephen Geary had done. When you went to visit, he landscaped it.
He said, so that when you visited to see your loved ones, or
to see them committed interred, you yourself would go as they were going on
a journey into the unknown, and you would as you went around and explored
and discovered the place you would come to know. You'd come to sense more
clearly, this is his phrase, invisible beyond. I say this to your
listeners because they'll know who I mean. Some of my British people when I
take them around, don't know when I'd call him the Pt Barnum of burials.
He was a showman. It was all about drama and theater and spectacle
and it was a big gamble David, because the British were much more conservative
much more, you know, small scale, respectful, and you know,
especially when he came to death, and here he was with these big structures,
this Egyptian avenue, or in these vivid colors fresh egg blue and egg
yolk yellow, and the Roman catacombs shelves, hundreds and hundreds of bodies on
shelves on shelves. That's not very respectful, and so on. It was
a big gamble. People could have gone, oh no, this is vulgar,
and this is foreign, this is alien and not British. But they
didn't. They loved it. They lapped it up, and so much so,
as I say, he had to build an extension within about ten years.
The wanna be just fineing the cemetery, I wanna stand. I want
to lend anywhere around. Don't want to wait till it's too lay and I
am seas under. The wanna be iregious money the cementary. You lose your
health of any wealthy certainty. Y see, I'm wanting Biggie with a big
Mormon being on Morty City. I wanna die. As John said earlier,
the East Side wasn't designed to be a city of the dead like the original
West Side was Geary's go was to make the living feel as though they were
experiencing a journey into the unknown, as their loved ones possibly had. Well,
what I probably did with you, what I normally do with my tours,
is we meet in the chapel where people would have done to send off
their loved ones with the final service. Then you come outside and look across
the courtyard and there's a flight of steps. Now you can't they've been designed
and built so you can't see the top. Because this is where your journey
to the unknown begins. You walk up those steps and then you find,
as if you remember David Serpentine paths, no straight paths, No straight paths,
because if there were straight you'd see the end. No level paths,
level paths, you'd see the end. So they this is so different to
anything that the Brits had experience up to this point. And the idea was
it draws you in. You have to explore. You don't know quite where
you're going. These paths are going to delve and dip and wend and weave,
and the whole thing was an experience, and this two hundred years ago
was just sensational, you know, to the British people, and you remember,
so you know there are no photographs. It's two hundred years ago,
so people can't have seen pictures of an acropolis. I mean there are cities
of the dead in Greece and in Rome, but they can't have seen pictures.
They didn't travel to Greece or Rome two hundred years ago, so this
was a closed book. It was truly therefore reve latery when people went,
and they absolutely loved it. Since folks couldn't necessarily travel to these exotic locales,
the design of Highgate brought it to them. Classical as well as Egyptian
design was incorporated into different areas of the cemetery, including a dark tunnel of
tombs called Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon, which is a circle of
tombs surrounded by a ring of tombs and so named for an old Cedar of
Lebanon tree which stood atop the inner circle of tombs and had existed there since
William Ashurst own the property. Unfortunately, fungus rigged havoc on it, and
the hard decision to cut it down was made in twenty nineteen just up from
there. Since the Roman style catacombs built into the slope of the hill and
filled with coffin compartments along the walls of the dark vaults where no artificial lighting
is allowed. I mean I say to people, look, we could put
a light in here. Of course, we could put strip lighting, we
could have spotlight. We could, but then it isn't Victorian. You know,
this is how the Victoria's experienced it. This is how they liked to
experience it. They came to talk to their loved ones. They came to
speak to these coffins. All the coffins, as you remember, David do,
they all face out, all their heads are near you, so you
can literally you can touch them, you can lean into them. But they're
in Victorian times. They would have come to talk to them every week,
probably every day in some cases. I mean, death was so much more
part of life, and they didn't want bright lights. And you know,
this was a sort of reverent act that they came along. And we've kept
it that way. And I think the atmosphere is a million times better because
because you can't see everything very clearly, you do get this tremendous atmosphere.
God, I don't bitary. There are not many better words for Highgate Cemetery
than that one atmosphere. The design elements give it such uniqueness on their own,
but there are a couple more elements that really set it off, including
the wonderment in awe of the guest list. Well, the thing with with
Highgate is the movers and shakers, as we say, you know of the
Victorian era there, but you high that's what we may yeah, High,
but they were the ones who who did stuff and contributed to iconic sort of
things that we know today, but we don't know their names. Necessary So
I showed you the MEAs family. I'm sure their memorial, the Meer's family,
Britain's longest running family business, you know, over seven hundred years.
When we talk about long, David as you know, we mean long.
I think I probably made the joke to you. I'm going to make it
a game that what's the difference, you know between the Brits and the Americans.
Well, the Brits think one hundred miles is a long way. I
mean we do if we're going one hundred miles, you know, we kit
out, we take food, we take supply to go one hundred miles.
But the Americans get this, think one hundred years is a long time.
We don't get out of bed for one hundred years. So our longest running
family business seven hundred years. They make bells, big bells, special bells.
You have one of theirs. You would give it in Philadelphia. It's
called the Liberty Bell. And the most famous bell, we would say,
the Brits would say in the world is Big Ben. And they made The
Miers family made Big Ben. So and then I think I showed you the
guy who designed Buckingham Palace, and so Edward Blow. These people's names aren't
known, but what they did is definitely known. Our most famous residents know
all of your listeners will know, and that is Karl Marx, who was
an emigrants. He'd been chased out of Germany. He had all these curious
ideas about how the world should be one in communism. And also he'd been
chased out of Germany came to Britain as poor as a church mouse because he
was writing all these books and people thought he was crackers. And so he
died in pretty much obscurity in London. And then, of course he died,
but his fame grew, and so everybody's said of Marx now and he
is now the most visited grave in the in the cemetery. When I first
started their David ten thirteen years ago, you'd have thousands of Russians come to
visit him. You know. Now communism's over in Russia. Now we have
thousands of Chinese visiting the grave of Karl Marx. And that is in the
east, that's in the East section. I was particularly excited to see Michael
Faraday there. Oh yes, yes, well again people, I don't suppose
most people would have heard of him. If you know anything about the world
of electricity, you will have heard of him. In fact, there's a
unit of electricity called a Faraday. I was honored and privileged. One day.
I love who turns up on my tours. On our tours, anybody
is not just mine, but going quite often they're experts in their particular field
who come to see somebody, literally somebody in particular. And one day on
one of my tours was a guy I think he was from Princeton, but
anyway, he was in charge of the Albert Einstein Laboratory and offices, which
I think is in Princeton. And he said, we kept Albert Einstein's office
exactly as it was on the day that he died. And the office has
one picture on the wall. The wall's covered as you might imagine in formulae
and all that you know, But there's one picture on the wall. And
the picture is not of his wife or of his children, or it's of
Michael Faraday, his great hero. To Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday was without
doubt the greatest scientists who ever lived. And Albert Einstein said he was the
father of the twentieth century. What he meant by that was in the nineteenth
century when this Highgate Cemetery opened. In the Victorian era two hundred years ago,
you had steam, and you had gas for lighting you. Most of
power was provided by horses horsepower. What you didn't have is electricity. This
is the twentieth century phenomenon. The Victorians knew about electricity. They could see
it every time there was a lightning strike. They could see the power of
this thing. But they couldn't capture it, couldn't store it. There's no
kind of motor to deliver electrical power. And mister Faraday, Michael Faraday,
this amazing son artists had a hand in delivering all of those things. So
That's why Albert Einstein called him the father of the twentieth century, the century
of electricity. Fifteen acres were originally designed to hold graves for the members of
the Church of England, with two more for dissenters or those who separated from
the church. Those of other faiths or no faith at all were buried against
one of the outer walls on the west side, which is where you can
find Faraday's headstone. Other notable residents of the East and west sides include author
Douglas Adams, musician George Michael, author George Eliot aka Mary Ann Evans,
the wife, sister and parents of Charles Dickens, and he's buried in Westminster
Abbey. Henry Gray, author of Grey's Anatomy, actor Ian Holm, who
played Bilbo Baggins and The Lord of Rings films, actor Bob hast Skins who
played Mario in that nineties Mario movie, as well as Smee and Hook,
and a host of other famous and infamous folk. The third component to Highgates
atmosphere, in my opinion, is how it looks now. Originally, as
we said, it was clean cut and maintained, but the twentieth century saw
it fall into a state of disrepair. Well, it was so popular,
as I say, that it was nearly full within about a decade, and
so they opened this extension. But then came along the Great War, the
First World War, which for US was nineteen fourteen nineteen eighteen, for you,
for the Americans nineteen seventeen to nineteen eighteen. But when the Americans entered
the war, it soon came to an end because you know, they tipped
the whole balance. But what it meant was it was the Great War,
and everyone in Europe, certainly of the belligerents, would have known someone who
died. I mean in my family, you know, I had family members
who died and they were usually just left but buried where they fell on the
battlefields of Europe, France or Belgium, and they had no memorial and if
they did, it was a cheap white cross in a sort of military cemetery
if they were lucky and so and so that's one aspect of the decline of
Highgate, because there was a moral revulsion. Let's put it that way.
People back home in Britain, you know, their loved ones had given their
lives in battle, maybe their husband, maybe their brother, maybe their son,
maybe their fiance, their best friend, maybe all of them. And
where were they They had no grave, and here were people like mister Beer
spending eleven million pounds on a dead daughter. So there was a sort of
revulsion. And then on a practical level, there were one hundred gardeners at
Highgate. There were one hundred or I think fifty sorry monumental masons. There
were hundreds of working class men who kept the thing going, and they were
all called up and many did not come back. So the combination of all
these things meant that from about nineteen eighty nineteen the beautifully kept Highgates started to
fall into decline. And the more it fell into decline, the more people
came along and looked at it. Didn't like what they saw quite so much
because it was getting a bit tatty, and so they went elsewhere, and
so of course that was even less income, so even more decline, And
so in about nineteen twenty two was it twenty four, a few years after
the end of the Great War, they kind of locked up the gates,
hoped for better things, hope for a return of their fortunes, which never
came. And so fifty years Later in the nineteen seventies, a charity opted
to take over the cemetery and start doing it up, and that's the situation
we have today. That charity was the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, an
all volunteer organization which still manages and preserves the cemetery to this day. The
Friends decided to repair and restore Highgate Cemetery, which they nicknamed Victorian Valhalla.
But there were challenges they faced, namely plant growth. Oh, he gave
it an awful lot of atmosphere. Yeah, I should point out there was
not a single tree in the original Highgate Cemetery. It was a cemetery park.
It had these hundred full time gardeners. All they did was plant and
replant flowers and shrubs. The idea was, you see David too, that
when punters came along, when people, prospective clients came along, or people
whose loved ones were there, they came to this well heaven on earth really,
So there was a regulation height of grass. There were peacocks strolling the
grounds. You were deep in the countryside miles from London. In the highest
point north of London you could look down in there in the distance would be
London, a hump of smogan disease and infection. But you you were in
the you know, the clean air of the County of Middlesex. So it
was the idea is when you came along, you didn't feel sorry for your
departed loved ones. You felt almost envious because they were in such beautiful,
exquisite, serene surroundings. So there wasn't a single tree to get in the
way of the views or whatever. But when I went, as I say,
on the opening day in nineteen seventy six I think it was, and
we were let in or officially the gates were open for the first time in
half a century. There were two and a half million trees, far too
many. Yeah, oh yes, when you visited, David, you might
have thought, there's a lot of trees. That's ninety thousand. That's only
ninety thousand e left. We couldn't have moved because of the trees. So
what happened was over the years, so many of the trees were removed,
but they're all self seeded. Some were protected species, very rare and protected,
so they have to stay, and the others, if they were removed,
they would compromise a grave. In some way, and that's how we've
done the balancing act between no trees and some trees. And we love the
trees, we don't want them to go. As you say, they add
such atmosphere, but there were just too many of them, So ninety thousand
is enough. Two and a half million which was too many. The overgrowth
seemed to add to the beauty of the place, and instead of clearcutting everything
sought to preserve the natural additions that weren't actively destroying structures in what they termed
managed neglect, a decision that enhanced the cemetery's character. Oh totally, I
totally agree with you. I think it's even more beautiful today in its as
it were decrepitude than it would have been. I think it would have been
beautiful. And of course we don't have any photos because they haven't been invented,
but we do have a few sketches from the eighteen thirties which do show
it to be a lovely place. And you see the ladies, you know,
in their crinolines and their parasols taking the air. But like you,
you know, I don't want to go back to those days. I love
the way it is now. The nature and nurture, you know, the
man made stuff. And just to show how special it is. You may
not know. We have this system in Britain of sort of listing our most
important places so that the very most important can be protected and not spoiled and
not developed and built on. I can't remember how many there are that.
They're called Grade one. I mean, so Grade two is very important,
and you know, lots of important buildings would be grade too, but the
most precious, a few thousand of them. They're called Grade one, and
they really are. You can't do anything with them. Nothing must ever happen
to them. They're obvious if you've ever been to Britain. The Saint Paul's
Cathedral, they're Westminster Abbey, They're the Tower of London, They're Buckingham Palace,
they are Highgate Cemetery. We are Grade one listed. That's how precious
and special it is. We'll take a quick break and when we come back,
ghosts, magic and a vampire add to Highgates mystique. See on the
other side. Highgate and Swain's Lane were never strangers to violence, highwaymen and
death. In fact, writings from the early nineteenth century suggested the denizens of
Highgate Village were somewhat inclined to being overly excitable, attributing otherwise normal happenings to
the paranormal, and believing a boogeyman lurked in the shadows of Swain's Lane,
waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims. Perhaps the allegations of hysteria are deserved,
perhaps not, But as time has marched on, accounts of paranormal activity have
continued. Familiar types of phenomena have been reported, such as failure of electronic
devices. Cell Phones, cameras, lights, batteries have all been subject to
an apparent unnatural agency, causing fully charged electronics to die on the spot,
phone signals to be lost unexpectedly, and camera buttons failing to perform their function.
Electronic troubles don't seem to be an epidemic, fortunately, as photos and
recordings have been made regularly since it's reopening, and no doubt a good while
before. Personally, I took like a thousand pictures there and I had no
trouble at all. Perhaps the most famous EVP or electronic voice phenomena was captured
in nineteen sixty five by indie record producer Joe Meek. Meek had been visiting
the cemetery at night to record sound there and claimed to have captured a disembodied
female voice saying obscure contorted words. I'll play that right now. Don't blame
me, god now, but those time, I'm just kidding. I couldn't
find the EVP to play you. Sorry now. There have been no shortage
of examples of this podcast's namesake as well, and many carry the classic story
of the photographer not seeing anything out of the ordinary, but when the photo
was developed or looked at later, an odd shape or mist would be present
in it. However, it's the reports of spectral entities that garner the most
excitement and attention for paranormal enthusiasts. Several different encounters have been reported over the
years, with a small variety of alleged phenomena, and these accounts date back
to the nineteenth century. One story from the nineteen seventies details a ghostly figure
unique to other reports. At least two folklorists wrote about an old woman shrouded
in white who stands forlornly at the entrance to the east side of the cemetery,
staring absently out the gate. When approached, she said to disappear quote,
only to reappear a short distance away, adopted the same listless gaze end
quote, and though not explicitly connected by anyone reporting them, there is another
old woman said to have been seen in the cemetery, and speculation has been
raised of whether or not they are the same entity. The second apparition of
an older woman dashes through the headstones, almost as if she's frantically searching for
something or someone. Author and parapsychologist Peter Underwood wrote about this figure in his
nineteen seventy three book Haunted London, where he speculated it to be an quote
old and mad woman whose children were buried here after she had murdered them,
and now her sad and restless spirit seeks the graves of those she harmed but
really loved end quote. There is no evidence presented to lead anyone to this
conclusion, but some sleuths have dug up clues that could support the idea had
there been much more incriminating information. A Morning Chronicle article from eighteen forty five
told of some boys playing around a tree near the southern part of the East
Cemetery when one of them found a black bundle inside the trunk. Opening it,
they discovered the somewhat decomposed body of a child with evidence of violence apparent.
And in eighteen sixty five a trial was held when a Robert Pringle,
a tailor in Highgate Village, found a parcel tied up and upon opening,
discovered the horribly mutilated remains of a baby. The trial mentioned witnesses to two
women fighting over a child near the cemetery, but turned up new culprits.
Coupled with the similar discovery in the tree on Highgate Hill, speculation has been
tossed around that perhaps the Specter of the old Woman is connected, though at
this point it would probably be impossible to confirm. By the middle of the
twentieth century, Highgate Cemetery had become a popular place to gather for magical rituals.
Practitioners of black and white magic saw it as a perfect spot to tap
into other worldly powers, owing to its atmosphere and architecture. Seances and summoning
ceremonies were held in the dead of night, and symbols were drawn in and
among the tombs and catacombs. Stories of summonings and dark magic rituals abounded,
with people claiming to have summoned malicious entities in communed with evil forces, which
only added to the cemetery's mystique. Whether or not this time period spawned future
reports of strangeness is debatable, but it wasn't the first time someone had supposedly
encountered something supernatural there. The New Zealand Herald published a letter from an anonymous
source in eighteen sixty eight that described a harrowing encounter one winter while walking on
nearby Hampstead Lane, just northwest of the cemetery. In the center of the
road was a man, tall, thin, cadaverous, mysterious, noiseless.
The first thought which rushed into my head when I beheld my spectral friend was
is he human or superhuman? If human, then most probably a grotter.
If superhuman, most decidedly one of bad taste to be abroad as a matter
of liking such a night as this, I distinctly remember the great desire my
hair had to lift my hat off my head, and a cold clammy perspiration
beat it on my forehead. Instinctively, I found myself walking on again,
sharply hoping that my companion would by dint of exertion on my part, soon
be left behind. As I quickened my pace, my spectral friend quickly into
his. Also, my friend's footsteps were noiseless. He seemed to glide along
like one of the characters, and skelts shilling toy theaters, still keeping in
the road, but all the while abreast of me, I was confounded.
A feeling of fear came over me. I sickened at heart. I mechanically
walked quicker, he glided quicker, still, breast abreast. I burst into
a trot. He glided into a trot too, still, noiseless, wretched
man as he was. I involuntarily started off downhill as fast as my legs
could take me. To my horror, he glided too faster than ever,
still breast abreast, still, I struggled on on on. Dim pictures of
horses danced past me, now up, now down the hedges past my distorted
vision. Railings shot up and vanished like streaks of white paint. I suppose
I must have ran a good mile, and it somewhat recovered my reasoning faculties
when I felt a desire to stop such an amount of physical exertion, feeling
convinced that I must have got far away from my antagonist. So easing myself
into a slow emotion, I gradually came to a dead standstill and wiped the
perspiration off my face. I thought I would just turn round and scan the
distance which lay atwixt me and mister specter. Horror upon horrors, agony upon
agony. There stood the wretch in the road, tall, thin, cadaverous,
mysterious and noiseless, quite calm and contemplative. Once again I found myself
pursuing my course at a rapid speed, my friend still continuing in concert.
If I lagged, he lagged. If I smartened my pace, he smartened
his. I walked, he walked. If I ran like a fiery meteor,
he ran like a fiery meteor. But yet his pace throughout was steady,
like the figures that pass in front of the magic lantern, and his
footsteps were noiseless. I saw or fancied. I saw a light. With
frantic effort, I bounded towards it. I seized a garden gate. It
would not yield. I felt a figure glide up to me, and a
warm breath whispered in my ears these ominous words I hope you're not fatigued,
sir. It was my silent friend, my evening tormentor. I loathed him.
My blood boiled. I strove to speak and failed. I strove again
and prevailed. Do you wish to insult me? No, certainly not,
sir, said my tormentor. I only hoped you are not fatigued, sir.
Good night, so saying, he politely bowed and glowed, lighted noiselessly
away in the mist. In the early fall of nineteen sixty nine, a
woman was walking her little dog down Swain's Lane twice a day ritual the two
performed, when suddenly the little pup began growling and raising a fuss at something.
Through the gate of the West Cemetery, the woman claimed to see a
tall, dark man floating without touching the ground. To her horror, it
started floating toward her, but suddenly disappeared before reaching the gate. It was
around this period of time that the locale saw a discernible uptick in alleged encounters
with phantasmal beings. One R. Dougherty wrote to the Hampstead and Highgate Express
the ham and High reporting on one such entity at the Cemetery in nineteen seventy.
There is, without a doubt a ghost of when and whom he originated?
I do not know. Many tales are told, however, about a
tall man in a hat who walks across Swain's Lane just disappears through a wall
into the cemetery. Local superstition also has it that the bells and the old
disused chapel inside the cemetery toll mysteriously whenever he walks. This figure would go
on to be described several more times by several different people over the years.
November nineteen eighty five, a woman by the name of Janet Morril claims she
saw some kind of tall, shadowy figure Vanish near the northernmost gate to the
West Cemetery. November nineteen ninety one, Declan Walsh described a similar sighting while
walking around six thirty am, saying he saw a tall man dressed in black
Victorian style of clothing, including a cape and top hat. He walked directly
towards the gates. Gates were locked and shot, but he walked straight through
them without altering his stride, nor did he make any sounds. I walked
past him on the other side and could see no one else present. Two
thousand and four, month unspecified, Patsy Langley was on a tour of Highgate
when some other tourists remarked about seeing a tall man in a black cloak who
had disappeared near the north gate of the West Cemetery. They thought it had
been an actor hired just to spook tourists, but the guide at the time
assured them this was not the case. Patsy went on to author the book
The Highgate Vampire Casebook in two thousand and seven. August two thousand and five,
a man named Martin Trent was walking home one night down Swain's Lane when
he caught sight of a man not too far ahead of him. He recalled
it being a hot summer night, but the man was dressed in black clothing,
including a large overcoat and top hat. Though the man looked to be
early, his face was gaunt with high cheekbones. Wanting to avoid the figure
as much as possible, Trent crossed to the opposite side of the lane,
but just when he was passing it, I could swear I heard him say
to me, good evening to you, sir, in what sounded at first
like a strange accent, but which I later thought just sounded old fashioned.
The other peculiarity about his greeting was that it didn't seem to come from his
direction as such, but rather seemed to be hissed right next to my ear,
which, given the ordinariness of the words, still gave me a jolt.
I'm not even sure if the voice was male or female. Now it
seemed to be oddly neutral as far as I can remember, though he had
trouble remembering much else. He went on to say that after walking a little
farther down the lane, he felt compelled to turn and look back. As
he did, he witnessed the figure glide through the closed gates of the East
Cemetery. Additional sightings of a strange figure in black or sometimes of black,
could be connected, though they didn't report a top hat. In nineteen sixty
five, an ex army officer by the name of Brian Bourne was traveling down
Swing's Lane near the north gate when he noticed what appeared to be black treacle
flowing down and running over the wall. It touched the ground and actually flowed
like a big black pool of liquid into the center of the path. About
six feet before me, there was an icy coldness, which grew more intense
with the passing seconds. Literally an arctic cold with dusk falling full on the
perimeter wall. The path was in shadow, but there was a shadow discernible
within that shadow. The most horrible part was, and I still have nightmares
about it, still wake up in a cold sweat. It reared up.
I'd estimated its height at seven or eight feet. I'm five feet eight inches
tall, and it towered over me. It was enormous. It was neither
solid nor transparent. My overall impression was that it was a black figure wearing
dark garments which flowed and stirred in the wind. But there was no wind.
The edges of what it was wearing were moving, no face where eyes
would have been if it were human. There were just two red pits,
red glows, and I was very conscious that it was looking at me.
At that point I realized that I was up against an entity that was both
powerful and malignant. It was radiating evil. That's the only way I could
describe it. This wasn't a ghost, it was an entity. Attempts have
been made to put a name to this Victorian garbage gentleman, with mixed results.
One possible culprit that has been put forth is Henri Fuinley. In December
of eighteen fifty six, a cemetary worker stumbled upon the body of mister Fuinley
near the site of the present day East Cemetery gate. The victim had taken
his own life by shotgun, and police found his name and some notes inside
his black clothing. The twenty year old son of a dentist was buried in
the West Cemetery. An untimely death, the right period, clothing and the
right location have led some to believe this is the phantom that haunts the lane.
But another name has been put forth as well, that of William Blake.
No, not that William Blake. This one was around a good century
before the poet of the same name. This Blake lived in a cottage on
Swain's Lane, near the south end of the cemetery, and tried unsuccessfully to
purchase and run different establishments in the area, including an orphanage, a school
houses, and a pub just north of the cemetery called the Flask. He
died while in a debtors prison, and the location of his grave is unknown.
Unhappy in life, some have speculated that his restless spirits still roams the
land he loved and tried to make work for him. I asked John,
if he was familiar at all with the man and the hat, he'd fit
right in, wouldn't he. I think he may have been one of those
figures that knocked around in the late sixties early seventies with the Farrant Manchester Highgate
Vampire. But personally, and I know no more than that. They always
build fences around gardens, of course, to keep people out. High agreed
they always build all round a prison because if they didn't, well, where
would they be With that? There is nothing amiss, But will you please
tell me this? Why will the wall round the grave yard when nobody wants
to go in? Why will the wall round the grave yard when nobody wants
to go out? It may be a beautiful haven of rist, but you
know that he'll be a permanent guest. So why will there around a greave
yard when nobody wants to go in? Here's the contortionist, belitted peete.
He tried his best to make boats in meat here either drinker the harbor of
him he'd be with the smell, but he couldn't say when. Ah,
we'll take another quick break, and when we return we get a little vampiric
stay tuned will a blinking great slab on his chest, heads off, another
new member signed on, heads off at Wall around the Grave God, when
nobody wants to go in? Why the lore out of the grave? God,
when nobody wants to go out in a nice wooden coat to mcguill'stand any
screen they make pretty certain you're sure during me so WI no wall around the
lave yard when nobody wants to go in, that's on at dog, that's
all at no believe it or not. The dark figure in the hat is
not the most famous paranormal star of Highgates Terry, despite its many supposed sightings.
It plays second fiddle to another entity that is much less tangible, even
in ghostly terms, although some folks would argue they're perhaps the same, being
as John just mentioned, the real popularity of Highgate's paranormality came to fruition in
the seventies with a couple individuals their exploits in the public atmosphere and pop culture
of the time. The Highgate Vampire is the most well known spook attached to
the cemetery, though its legend has gotten some help from a famous feud,
famous actor, and famous escapades of other people. This portion of Highgate's history
was made possible by occultist and author David Farrant. After being approached by Joe
Meek and hearing Meek's supposed EVPs. Farrant founded the British Psychic and Occult Society
and explored Highgate to get to the bottom of the claims made by Meek and
others. One of these others told Farrant about an experience where a tall,
dark gray specter had psychically drained him of energy and kept him hypnotically fixated until
it finally disappeared. Farrant had also been told first hand of the experience the
Lady with the Little Dog had in nineteen sixty nine, and on December twenty
first of that same year, he struck out at eleven pm to investigate the
cemetery for himself. Lucky for him, the excursion was not in vain,
for while he was trying to make out what lay beyond the bars of the
North Gate, he claimed to have spotted a seven foot tall, dark humanoid
figure that began to float towards him, stopping a mere three yards away.
Farrant described two faint points of light that he took for eyes on a featureless,
dark mass of a face, and, as he called it, a
psichic attack. This account is detailed in his wife, Della's twenty fourteen book
Haunted Highgate. David's account of the experience was relayed in a letter to the
Ham and High on February sixth, nineteen seventy, and differed slightly, saying
the date was Christmas Eve and that he had actually seen the entity three times
between the twenty fourth and the writing of the letter. His occult Society BPOs
conducted investigations at the cemetery, which some have said is where the two additional
sightings came from, but David graciously conveyed they were his sightings to protect the
members from ridicule. His popularity grew, and even the Ham and High staff
began going to him for opinions about other paranormal topics. It led to an
innocuous request printed in the paper with his article, asking for additional reports of
the phantom figure from the public. Several accounts were submitted, including semi mentioned
earlier. An interest in the whole affair began to Swell and Highgate and beyond.
During this period, Farrant continued to explore the overgrown grounds, claiming to
find evidence of Satanic worship and rituals in tombs and catacombs described as what sounds
like the beer mausoleum. He claimed to have found and photographed an inverted pentagram
made from chalk or salt, along with what were deemed magical symbols to summon
quote unquote the old Kings of Hell. I mean, if there's more than
one king, isn't the title kind of meaningless? Anyway? When more than
a couple corpses of foxes were discovered, more or less ex sanguinated and with
no noticeable cause of death, the paper ran headlines like why do the foxes
die? And does a wampier walk in Highgate? They ran it as a
joke, while letters about experiences came in the news thought it was a jolly
good time. The locals begged to differ. A loose vampire was the most
logical conclusion drawn by the public, and Farrant was invited on a Thames TV
broadcast for an interview about it all. Farrant was careful to not mention the
word vampire, as he thought it was a bridge too far for an explanation,
but another guest on the show absolutely latched onto the term and idea and
poured petrol on a swelling fire of a situation. That was Sean Manchester,
a self proclaimed skilled vampire hunter, exorcist, descendant of Lord Byron and bishop
of the Old Catholic Church that is an offshoot of Catholicism that did not believe
in the infallibility of the pope and also holds more liberal views on social issues.
To him, the experiences were indicative of a king vampire and that it
should be killed with a stake through the heart, de keptation and burning.
The remarks were heard throughout Highgate and beyond, and on Friday, March thirteenth
of nineteen seventy, hundreds of people eager to slay the vampire, assaulted the
gates of Highgate Cemetery. Police tried to hold back the throng but proved ineffective.
A good deal of vandalism was perpetrated on the overgrown cemetery, but no
vampire was ever found. A few months later, the century old corpse of
a woman was found staked, beheaded and burnt in the cemetery, which concerned
Farrant in regards to the violence committed to him. A malevolent entity needed to
be exercised from the location. A few nights later, he and some other
occult society members snuck into the cemetery to conduct a seance and possible banishment ritual.
They brought incense, chalk, salt, candles, charcoal, and a
piece of wood wrapped in white satin cord, supposedly to mark out the circle
they needed to draw. After marking out a couple of circles and getting everything
nice and seancey, the ritual was interrupted by the coppers, who arrested Farrant
for the crime of vampire hunting. I guess the charges were dismissed by a
judge, but it wouldn't be the last time he ran a foul of the
law, which I'll circle back too shortly. In nineteen seventy three, all
Hills seemed to break loose. Farran and Manchester had developed a rather contentious relationship,
which resulted in rumors of a magician's duel a top Parliament Hill in April
of that year. It never happened. Manchester later wrote in his nineteen eighty
five work the Highgate Vampire that he had gotten into a part of the catacombs
in nineteen seventy looking for the vampire's coffin, but had come up empty.
Then, around the time of Faran's arrest, he had been led to a
vault in the cemetery by a young psychic assistant, and making his way inside
and prying the lid off the coffin. Therein, he claimed to glimpse the
vampire he sought. Present at this unpleasant unboxing were some of his followers,
who persuaded him to not drive the stake he had at the ready through the
corpse's heart, as the law was not on their side in regards to messing
with human remains. Instead, they performed an exorcism ritual and left a crucifix
in some holy water inside, and said the cemetery officials bricked it up after
Farrant meanwhile became fixated on the police, as a friend of his had gotten
roughed up a bit by them. He sent them voodoo dolls and not very
kind messages, which made him a target when police later found a headless corpse
in a car in his area, though someone else confessed to the prank.
Police found photos of vandalized graves in his possession, and a judge sentenced them
to almost five years in prison. He served two and a half before being
let out for good behavior. He always maintained that the voodoo dolls were his
doing, but the vandalism was from Satanists. The feud with him and Manchester
continued, with more magicians, duels bandied about but never fought in the late
seventies, and jabs thrown at each other through print and media up until Farren's
death in twenty nineteen. Manchester had an interesting encounter in nineteen eighty two,
which was detailed in his book. He claimed to have tracked down the vampire
in an old, abandoned house in London's crouch End. There he staked it
through the heart and burnt the body, but his psychic assistant became possessed by
the vampire, causing her to morph into a giant spider. After a perilous
fight, he managed to stake it as well, releasing his assistant from the
possession. All according to Manchester, I was hesitant to ask John about the
whole ordeal, as it's a touchy and not fondly remembered chapter in high Cemetery's
history, as you can well imagine, but he graciously gave some things to
think about that weren't related to the Farent Manchester feud, but could have contributed
to the hysteria that sprang up in the seventies. I suppose one of the
reasons that a charity upped and took over the place in the nineteen seventies was
down to would you believe Dracula, Because in the nineteen sixties, you see
the company that operated, the original company that operated the cemetery, though it
wasn't it wasn't a working cemetery. They weren't burying people there. They wanted
to make some money out of it, but without spending any money on it,
and so one of the things they did was hire it out as a
film set, a giant outdoor film set for a film company, a British
film company that some of your older members may be able to recall called Hammer
Hammer Horror. Hamma only made horror films, and what it did was it
took all those horror films that you'd made, the Universal had made in the
thirties. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Ghould as you know, all that kind
of stuff, the Mummy and remade them all in the fifties and sixties in
color, and it made eleven Dracula films at on location at Highgate. And
I think you'd agree, David, having been there, it's a wonderful location
for that kind of isn't it. Yeah, So Christopher Christopher Lee was there.
Christopher Lee's great breakout role was as Dracular. I know he went on
to do other things Lord of the Rings and all that, a few other
things, indeed, but he started as a wonderful Dracula. And he was
seen one of my colleagues who's my age, late sixties, early seventies,
who was a child in those days, and they kids used to sort of
climb over the wall and you know, play in in the cemetery like a
big adventure playground, and he came across Dracula one day, you know,
with the full fig in the in the in the cloak, with the with
the with the with the with the fangs, the blood and it. Of
course it was Christopher Lee in costume filming a scene, but to this little
boy, it was Dracula. And so the word got out that Dracula lived
in this deserted cemetery. And then, as you know, two guys came
along called Sean Manchester and David Farrant, and they decided to perpetrate a quite
brilliant hoax about the Highgate Vampire. Well for whatever reason, and personally,
I think most of us believe it was because a book was in the offing
and they wanted and I think they just I think they just wanted to see,
you know, if they could hoodwig a sizeable population of North London.
You know, the Highgate is one of the most expensive places to live in
London because it's still a village, which in a big city, you know,
has a village atmosphere, Hampstead and Highgate and these and there are some
very very successful people there, very rich people, and I think I suspect
there was a bit of devilment. So things started to be seen, just
gently, just little things to begin with, just curious little events. Was
that somebody flitting through the trees there that could be in a cloak, could
be and so this idea of there being somebody, as it were, living
in Highgate was seeded in people's minds and then it took off. People actually
began to see for themselves. I think some of these things were deliberate.
I think David and Sean did do stunts. Somebody dressed up, somebody did
flit around and was therefore seen. But I think some people probably they were
so sure that we're going to see something, actually saw something. And before
very long this became just accepted. It was in the papers or the local
folk would go down just to see, could they sparked, you know,
the latest happening. And it became accepted that there was a vampire who lived
at Highgate, you know, so we'd seen them on film, seen them
on Cellar Lloyd, and here they were living there. So it wasn't very
long before vampire hunters decided they would come up and try and find this vampire
and put them too. Oh, most definitely. They brought steaks, you
know. And now you can't get to the underground tombs and the crypts,
and you know, you just can't there just too much. You'd need an
army to get underground. But what they did find was the catacombs. The
catacombs are above ground. They just had some flimsy, you know, sort
of iron work trail lists because they were guarded in their day, so you
know, they were never worried about anybody breaking in because they were guarded.
But now there was nobody there. The place was locked up, and so
in they got. As you know, you've been into the catacombs, as
I don't know, close on a thousand coffins. In those little niches,
those so called loculie you could easily just pull a coffin out of the niche.
What I should explain to your listeners, as I explained to you,
was that all the people buried at Highgate were buried in lead lined coffins.
The lead lining was there to keep in their decomposing gases. Because London was
such a disgusting place. The air was so foul and pestilential. You know,
to breathe it could kill you. The idea was, we don't need
anymore, thank you very much, from hundreds of thousands of decomposing bodies,
so put them in a leadline coffin to keep in their decomposing gases. Well,
what the vampire hunters discovered was that the lead had indeed kept in decomposing
gases, but at the same time it had kept out moisture and air.
So when they cut open the lead. The lead is soft. It wasn't
meant to be defensive. It was meant to just to contain inside. More
often than not was a body a slightly mummified body, a desiccated body.
The soft tissue had gone, but the skin and the bones, you know,
the clothes, the eyes, the hair would all be there. And
if you're a vampire hunter, perfect you had an a corpse to put a
steak in the heart, and that's what they began to so, but this
sort of news got out that if you wanted a body for any reason,
there were plenty going begging at Highgate Cemetery. They don't want to stop.
You just come in at nighttime, let yourself in through the trellis, take
down a coffin, bring a good knife, a pen knife, and cut
into them. There you'd have a body. And so hundreds of bodies,
a couple of hundred to be exact, were removed by voodoo worshippers, by
Satanists, you know, by black magic as a church of black magic that
came in and they were not like the vampire hunters who were just trying to
shove a steak, and so they were taking the bodies away for sort of
weird rituals. And what happened to bring everybody up to dat, as I
told you when you came round, David, was that didn't always take them
away. Maybe they were just but two or three bodies over the months were
left behind. One of a little servant woman was taken up by local school
children, girls school children as a sort of doll that they played with.
And then a couple of the blokes and male corpses had their heads kicked off
so that local lads who were in there could play football with their heads.
And yeah, this got into the local newspapers, then into the national newspapers.
You know, here's Highgate Cemetery and here's the local children playing with some
of its corpses. Big, big, big to do. And that's where
that's what spurred some local women, local women in Highgate to trace the company,
take it to court, challenge it to run the cemetery properly. And
when they demurred, they said no one could run it properly. It would
require far too much money to restore. They said, well, we don't
intend to spend any money. We intend to get tears to do everything,
which they did. As a judge awarded them ownership ownership transferred into seventy six
to the charity and it's been Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust ever since. And
lucky for all of us that was the case. So you can see how
coupling and occultist feud with a horror film location, well preserved bodies and sensational
headlines might have whipped up the general public into a bit of a frenzy.
I don't think anyone's ever said Christopher Lee specifically was the tall, dark entity
some folks ran across in their accounts as among his many talents, I don't
think he could vanish through a gate, though I wouldn't put it past him,
but his imposing figure could have inspired some imaginations at the time. Let's
break down some final thoughts as the sun begins to set on this particular episode.
Marnio fella, I've been through all of school on felling everything in about
the Golden But when not the neighbor that goes to walk time on my word
all that brainyard life, falling through the rain yard, I could I'm falling
in the side arm I just frost again. Lord A mercy take away and
breenyard line as a quick side note I mentioned it earlier, but there's a
pub a block north of the cemetery called the Flask. As with many locations
surrounding the cemetery places, I purposefully admitted from this episode so I could focus
only on the cemetery itself. The pub is said to be haunted, The
apparition of a cavalier is said to show itself from time to time before vanishing
through a pillar inside, and a Spanish barmaid supposedly hanged herself in the basement,
where some folks have reported feeling air blown on their necks in substantial cold
spots. I had lunch at the Flask after visiting the cemetery. I did
not experience anything odd, and at the time, almost a year to the
date prior to recording this, I had no idea the place was supposed to
be haunted. What I can say, however, is that the food and
atmosphere were both great, and I highly recommend stopping in there if you're in
the area. So are there phantoms roaming Swain's Lane, living shadows in the
west, cemetery unquiet specters in the east. The evidence comes in anecdotes and
a few blurry photos as I always say anecdotes are good for drawing attention to
something so investigation can begin, but they are not reliable evidence. If a
million people told a million similar stories, they could still all be wrong,
mistaken, or worse line, anecdotes give us a place to start scrutiny,
but with no way to verify or replicate the experience, they're pretty much useless.
Otherwise, the photos are better, but again unreliable as they are subjective,
especially in today's world of advanced tech. Away that break, I find
it almost impossible to draw any conclusion from a photo, especially not having been
there at the time it was taken. Paradolia plays heavily into interpretations, and
something as innocuous as reflected light or cigarette smoke can cause people to lose their
minds when viewed after the fact. So I don't put a lot of stock
into blurry images and low lying mists, not that there are a ton of
these involving Highgate anyway. Della Farran mentions in Haunted Highgate that starting around the
eighties, as the cemetery began to be properly looked after again, reports of
ghosts and experiences started to decline noticeably. There were still accounts from then through
today, some of which I pointed out earlier, but the number of them
definitely saw a downturn. The simplest explanation may not be the sexiest, but
it's often the correct one. I don't have the answers to the slew of
reports and the seventies fervor that kicked up in Highgate, but it seems like
the most reasonable explanation is that a confluence of events, filming, occult Shenanigan's
media, the science of panatology, which is the study of death, than
the forensics involved. All these things contributed to the legend of a beautiful and
creepy cemetery. Otherwise, the locals had no problem with the death and circumstances
mister Geary made possible back in eighteen thirty nine. In fact, it was
such a normal part of life the children made it into a playground of sorts.
I can't imagine myself as a child saying, hey, look there's a
dead body, let's take the head off and kick it around some Well,
that's just children. They may not be American children, it's British children,
you know. I mean, they can be very cruel. I have to
say, you see I have seen, interestingly enough, doesn't happen so much
these days, but there was a quite a few of these children came on
tours. They hadn't been back, and they came on tours, some of
which I took, and they brought polaroids. They'd taken photographs, particularly this
little woman, the woman I told you was made into a sort of doll.
So I have seen pictures of her, and you know, she doesn't
look really like a dead body. She looks rather dull, like she's in
her best clothes to be buried in, you know, to be and she's
very tiny. She was tiny anyway, and she she's not much bigger than
the doll. And so you know, they said to me, we didn't
think of them as dead people. And they didn't look like that. They
looked like dolls, a bit sort of porcelain like. So I mean that
that's presumably why they didn't freak out. Anyway, they certainly didn't freak out.
They she became really well known and all the all the girls apparently in
the area who bunked off school. But by bunked off, justic KP.
You don't use the phrase, I mean, you know, skipped school,
got out of school, took it, took an afternoon off. Then they
would climb over the wall to play in this in this wonderful they made.
They made a den, you know, a sort of gang headquarters in the
chapel and it was just a great adventure playground. And they came across this
bonus, which was some corpses that you could play with. You could either
take them around as dolls or you could kick them around as footballs. One
thing I was curious about was if there was any ghostly activity in the region
prior to the cemetery, A question that's probably impossible to answer by this point.
John was honest with me, No, no, But but what I'm
often asked, and I'm surprised you haven't asked me, is are their ghosts
at Highgate today? And let me answer that by saying, I go to
Highgate once maybe twice a week, and I go for a few hours,
so I'm not there all the time. And I was on the board,
on the charity board that runs the place for eight years. I had my
own keys, so I've been there late at night. We board meetings would
always be at eight o'clock and they'd finished sometimes eleven o'clock. I've walked through
because there's a north gate which is nearer to my home, and I would
walk through the entire cemetery in the pitch black to use the north gate and
never ever experience anything. Right, So from my point of view, I'm
sorry, I can't tell you anything. However, far more important than me
as somebody who's there every day. And he's our grave digger. And his
name is Victor. There's a great name, stayed out of Frankenstein. He
looks David. He looks straight out of Central Casting. He looks like he's
big guy, you know, six foot odd, burly guide digs all these
graves as his father did before him. So Victor's been a grave diger for
thirty years. His father thirty years before him, and Victor came along as
a child. Victor is in no doubt that there are ghosts. He's seen
them. He's shown me where he reckons. The most haunted spot in the
in the cemetery is, which is a bricked up or sounds like something from
Edgar Allan Poe, a bricked tomb. We don't know why it was bricked
up. You can just see the outline of where they bricked it up.
But he says around there or sorts of curious things, you know, implements,
spades and things move around and float, and there's there's there's there's what's
you know, sort of smoke and curious figures and things. There's no doubt,
no doubt or whatsoever in Victor's mind that the place is haunted. That's
cool. It's cool to get both perspectives of that. Is that one in
the west side. It's in the west side, Yes, it's just when
you go in in the courtyard, you know the arcade there. There's a
sort of an arcade because it's where the ladies would have sad when there was
a committal. It was thought in Victorian times that the ladies if they saw
a coffin being lowered into the ground, they'd faint or you know, have
the vapors or whatever. Is all ridiculous, So they built these ar they're
called arcades because they're behind arches where they sat until the coffin was safely in
the ground, and then they would have walked up themselves into the cemetery,
you know, to put some earth on it. And so behind the arcade
are there is this clearly walled up tomb of some kind, and that's apparently
the the the other thing that Victor warns it's all about because because Victor is
because we don't have many committals these days, we don't have many burials.
So he's as much about re coffining people from two hundred years ago as he
is about, you know, putting people in the ground for the first time.
And he always says to me when we go into the catacombs, because
he has to if he's recoffining, obviously he has to move the old coffin
and then build a new one around it, you know, some wood on
the outside or whatever. And he says, whenever I move any of these
coffins, I always listen carefully, and you should do the same, John,
you know, just have a bit of a listen, because if you
hear a hissing sound, it's because the gas has found a way to escape,
because if you move the coffins, sometimes it does, and that quite
often, and in his case, it's happened more often than he would wish.
The thing will explode, you know, because the gas will yeah,
and then you'll be covered in two hundred year old Victorian dead people not happening.
That's happened to him. It's happened to him. Yes, it certainly
happens. He's very respectful about moving coffins and on the other subject there.
I always feel slightly embarrassed about telling this story. But about three or four
weeks ago I was taking a group of young lads around the cemetery. They
were from a local college, really nice young guys. They were doing Gothic
studies or something, you know, for one of their exams. They are
probably about sixteen or seventeen. And I was telling them, how, you
know, there's certain film has been made their Dracula has made there and more
recently, you know, Fantastic Beasts. So Johnny Debt was there, trying
to get their interest, you know, and saying do you have any questions?
And one of them said, yeah, can we see a dead body?
You know? And I said, well, we've got one hundred and
seventy thousand all them in here, but whether you'll see one anyway. When
we got into the catacombs, they all of course got their mobile phones out,
all of them had lights in the and they all went scurrying around looking
in all the loculi, which I don't do, you know, And of
course there's no lights in the catacombs. There wouldn't have been lights two hundred
years ago. Light electric light hadn't been invented. So it's just as you
remember, David is just a light well which lets in, so the light
is very atmospheric, but it's not very bright anyway. Would you believe About
three or four loculie away from where I was talking, they found a coffin
where the lead had worn away, you know, just just perished after two
hundred years, exposing the contents within, which was basically as you might imagine
a skeleton, very clear, and the scarlet or where they were absolutely cocker
hoop. They thought this was the very best thing they could ever have wished
for to have found, you know, a two hundred year dead Victorian on
their trip to Highgate Sermetery. Well, I know, and I'm going to
be honest with you, I do feel embarrassed. I should I tell people
this story, just like I've told you where we do our tours, and
I say to people, I'll show you where it is and you can borrow
my flashlight if you want to. But you know it's up to you,
David. Everybody goes. Everybody he was up to have a look. No
one, no one, you know, is demurs at all. Enough of
respect for the dead. We're going to have a gorp at a two hundred
year old skeleton. It's not something you see every day, for shure,
It's not something you see every day, you know, And it is natural.
I mean, nobody's nobody's arranged this. It's just happened and somebody happened
to see it. And I've actually mentioned it to Victor, so he will.
Indeed, at some point he will recough in that, but so far
he hasn't. So it's an extra treat for visitors on my tours. I'm
sorry that he wasn't there when you went round you. I looked at a
few of those. Yeah, I didn't see any skeletons. So yeah,
everybody listening, get out there now, Yeah now, to avoid disappointment.
Regardless of whether or not shadowy entities abide there, dark rituals have been performed
there, or strange individuals have had misadventures there, the fact remains that this
is an amazing location in an attraction not to be missed. I was so
glad I took the time to visit and get a tour. Words can hardly
describe the beauty and history on display there. It's truly a marvel. John
hits us with the info on visiting. We have a wonderful website Highgate Cemetery
dot org and that will tell you all about the cemetery. We have cameras
inside some of the mausoleums. We have lots of pictures before and after pictures.
You know what the place looked like, and then your money because when
you pay to go round, that's where the money goes. Where all volunteers
doesn't come to us. The tours. There are tours every day of both
sides, West and East. There's one every half an hour at weekends that's
when I'll be around and my colleagues just go on trip Advisor for the details,
the exact details, and look at what people say about the tours.
We are so proud of them. We get fantastic feedback. And so when
we started doing these tours, you know in Earnest, which was sort of
during COVID really three or four years ago, Entreprenvisor London has and I'm not
surprised, seventeen thousand things to do and Highgate Cemetery was the three hundred and
sixtieth best thing to do. Well because of people going on the tours and
liking them and you know, giving us good reviews, we're now thirtieth best
thing to do and we are determined to get up into that top twenty,
if not that top ten. I don't think I'm david. You've been so
you could say, and we're not in the same room. A continent,
an ocean divides, so you won't insult me. You know, they are
something special, aren't they, and they're well worth doing. It's absolutely I
do not miss if you go to London. This is just it's not that
far to get to. We took a train and a bus and a quick
little jaunt and that was it, and then all of a sudden you're just
in another world and it's absolutely not to be missed. And it's just a
lovely area just in general, the whole area around it. So you can
make a whole day of it if you want. But you got to,
yea, you make sure you take the tour of the West Cemetery if you
can get that opportunity, I'd say make time for the opportunity. Well,
it is very unusual. It's unlike anything you've probably seen before. As I
say, it's Grade one listed, so it's really special. Even in Britain
has a lot of special buildings, so it's going to be a one off
experience and it's brought brought to life, no part intended. You know,
you can't read about it, you know, or see videos of it.
You've really got to go and experience it and feel that atmosphere and the catacombs
and you know, the Egyptian Avenue and now I don't know how many thousands
of these tours that I've taken now over the years, I never ever tire
of taking people around and trying to, you know, get them to share
my enthusiasm, which they mostly do. With a lot of people volunteering,
you know, to join the ranks of US volunteers because they get it and
it is special and you know, so its future is secure, so many
people want to help in any way. Don't all do tours, but we
have landscape volunteers who you know, do all the all the all the gardens
and stuff. There's a huge workforce doing everything. So if anyone's interested in
volunte hearing we'll find a job for them, an amazing turnaround from almost fifty
years ago. If you visit and are lucky enough to get John as your
tour guide, please let him know after the tour that you heard about it
from David Flora of Blurry Photos podcast. He'll be well chuffed. That's Highgate
Cemetery in an overgrown, gorgeous gothic nutshell. My sincere thanks to John Waite
for taking the time to speak with me about the cemetery and being a wonderful
sport with the spooky stuff. And now it's time for the shadowy figure in
a top hat inhabiting your lane puns. Down by the cemetery, there lived
a guy Wayne, who used to dress up in a big overcoat top hat
and try and scare off people who just wanted a nice walk at night by
a quiet place. He spooked so many people a legend grew claiming a ghost
was haunting the cemetery and the narrow road that ran by it. Locals understood
what was happening, however, and soon words spread to just avoid the little
road because, as they said, it's Wayne's lane. Terry was a demon
who liked peace and quiet and never got upset about anything. One day,
he was sitting peacefully in Hell when suddenly a portal opened and sucked him through
to a suburb of London. Already disturbed, he looked around at a bunch
of naked, chanting occultists surrounding him. He got even more mad when he
found he was encased in a protective circle and couldn't move. When one of
the occultists began throwing holy water on him, he blew top and exploded the
circle and naked bodies went flying. With the chanting stopped, he popped back
into Hell. And that, friends, is why you never want a mess
with an irate Demonary, there are your terrible puns and another episode of blurry
Photos in the books. Hope you're all well and be on the lookout for
the annual ghost Stories episode coming soon. For this episode of Blurry Photos,
I have been the hammered horror David Flora, don't stop blurry even