A Spirited Tour of Highgate Cemetery

What do a murdered Russian dissenter, the inventor of the electric motor, a past owner of the Observer, and the founder of Cruft’s dog show all have in common?

No, this isn’t the start of a terrible joke; Whilst all four led very different lives, they all share one commonality in death. They’re all buried alongside approximately 170,000 others in Highgate Cemetery.

A few weeks ago, we took a guided tour of Highgate Cemetery West. We have a lot of time for dark tourism (check out our blog post about it here) but not everyone’s the same. Some may balk at the idea of walking amongst the dead, let alone making a day of it.

But leave your preconceptions at the tall, gothic gate, because Highgate Cemetery has so much to offer.

A guided tour of Highgate Cemetery West

We did a 12.30pm guided tour with approximately ten others, and they provide you with a free map to take with you.

Our tour guide, Julia, began by discussing some of the history of London’s burial practices. She explained how, in the 19th century, faced with a fast-growing population and overflowing parish churchyards (sometimes literally), London had no choice but to build new private cemeteries.

As part of this plan, the Magnificent Seven were established: seven large, new private cemeteries to house the capital’s dead. And yes, Highgate Cemetery was one of them, with the east side being added much later.

For those after the details, the tour took us onto Colonnade Path then Main Drive, through the Egyptian Avenue, around the Circle of Lebanon and into the Terrace Catacombs, then up Morgan Road and down onto Sayers Road. We then followed Faraday Path until we found ourselves back onto Colonnade Courtyard where we started. In essence, you go in a sort of loop, taking you past most of the ‘big hitters.’

Bringing the dead back to life (through story!)

The grave of James Selby, a coach driver, was the first we saw on the tour. He once won a £1000 bet by driving from London to Brighton and back in under eight hours. Accordingly, his grave features a coachman’s whip and horseshoes.

Lots of the graves in Highgate have symbols or sculptures representing the life of the person buried there. For example, the large monument to General Sir Loftus Otway, an accomplished cavalry commander, is adorned with a fence of cannons and (questionably shaped) cannon balls.

On just the other side of the path to Otway, is the grave of Alexander ‘Sasha’ Litvinenko, a brave former Russian spy who spoke out against Putin, the KGB and the FSB. Litvinenko publicly accused Putin of the murder of his friend, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, on Putin’s birthday in 2006. Just 24 days later, Litvinenko was poisoned by Polonium-210, one of the deadliest substances on earth, and after three weeks in hospital, he died.

I’m fascinated by the life of Sasha Litvinenko and his grave was one I especially wanted to visit, so I was grateful that on the tour you do get the chance to pause and pay your respects.

Highgate Cemetery’s first ‘resident’

However, if you’re visiting to see the more historical headstones, then the next stop on the tour, the grave of Elizabeth Jackson, might be of more interest to you.

Jackson died in 1839 of consumption, becoming the first burial in Highgate just six days after its consecration. At this point, you might be wondering why her grave wasn’t at the start of the tour. Well, people weren’t buried in chronological order, they were buried in whatever plot their families chose to buy.

Burial rights were mostly sold in perpetuity, and it’s likely that Elizabeth Jackson’s widower just bought the best plot for her that he could afford.

Not far up from Elizabeth Jackson’s grave is that of Charles Cruft, founder of the famous dog show. Our guide told us that according to his wife, Mr Cruft really preferred cats, despite his legacy.

Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon

After Cruft, the tour takes you through Egyptian Avenue. This is some of the most stunning architecture you will see in Highgate Cemetery, as well as representing the Egyptomania obsession of the nineteenth century.

Pharaonic pillars and towering obelisks mark the entrance to the walkway, which with trees now towering over it has become somewhat of a tunnel, making the walk through it very dark. It was for that reason that many were reluctant to purchase burial rights on Egyptian Avenue: they didn’t want their burial sites to be dark and dingy.

The Victorians were morbid, but apparently not that morbid.

Coming out of Egyptian avenue takes you around the Circle of Lebanon, and to the next stop on the tour.

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall was a novelist and poet, whose book The Well of Loneliness about lesbian relationships was banned in 1929. We’re unsure what pronouns Radclyffe Hall would’ve used today, but as an adult Hall often went by the name John and wore men’s clothes (we absolutely encourage you to go and google images of Hall, they’re fantastic). Hall is buried here, in the Batten family chamber, as a result of a relationship with singer Mabel Batten.

Venturing out of the Circle of Lebanon can only be done via stairs (damn you, Victorians, for your lack of wheelchair access! Let your tour guide know if you need assistance, ours was only too happy to give us extra time to climb the stairs) which take you onto the top of Circle.

Our guide told us about the ancient Lebanese Cedar tree which used to grow in the centre of the circle, giving it its name. The tree was estimated to predate the cemetery by at least a century but became diseased and had to be felled in 2019. Don’t despair though, a sapling has been planted in its place, and who’s to say how many hundreds of years this new tree will stand!

Characters and catacombs

From this vantage point on top of the circle, you’ll see that Charles Cruft is far from the only animal lover to reside in Highgate Cemetery.

A large sculpture of a lion sits atop the grave of George Wombwell, a ‘menagerist.’ Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie started when he purchased two large boa snakes off of boats that arrived in London from South America, and he made a profit off of exhibiting them in local taverns.

During his menagerie career, Wombwell exhibited elephants, giraffes, lions, apes and all kinds of exotic animals the people of Victorian England had never seen before. Wombell passed away in 1850, when he was buried in a coffin gifted to him by Prince Albert, beneath a statue representing his most docile lion, Nero.

One excellent reason to do a guided tour of the west side is the access to the Terrace Catacombs, which can only be accessed on a guided tour. These catacombs aren’t particularly dingy or musty as one might expect, but it is quite dark (and a little creepy seeing the coffins themselves).

One particularly interesting resident of the catacombs is Robert Liston, a British surgeon famed for his ability to perform amputations in record time – for surgery without anaesthetic, speed was a blessing. There are many gruesome stories about Liston, including one operation that ended in a 300% mortality rate!

Next on the tour was the Beer Mausoleum. Julius Beer was a German-born financier who made his fortune on the London stock exchange, and later bought The Observer newspaper. He had two children, and only had the family mausoleum built after the tragic death of his eight-year-old daughter, Ada. A glimpse inside the mausoleum shows a sculpture of a young girl being protected by an angel.

Julius joined his young daughter in the Beer mausoleum just five years later.

The winner of the biggest funeral goes to…

Sayers Road is named after the most famous man buried along it, Thomas Sayers. Sayers was a bare-knuckle fighter whose career was a series of successes, only brought to an end by his match with the American champion John Heenan, in what could be called boxing’s first ever world championship.

Said fight was ended by the referee after hours of spectacle (including the crowd at one point invading the ring) but was ultimately declared a draw. Sayers would never fight again, as fans raised £3000 so that he could retire, as the public saw the devastating effects of the vicious fight.

The two men actually became friends, and it was reported that Heenan later visited Sayers in the final months of his life.

Sayers funeral was the biggest Highgate has ever seen, with a reported 100,000 attendees. On his grave is a statue of his beloved dog, Lion, who sat alone in a pony cart as part of Sayers’ funeral procession. Lion was a huge black mastiff and was referred to by many as the ‘chief mourner’ of Thomas Sayers.

Final destination(s)

The final headstone we saw on the tour was that of Michael Faraday, a chemist and physicist whose discoveries formed the basis behind the electric motor. He was instrumental in the study of electromagnetism and is now thought of as one of the most influential scientists in history.

In fact, Alfred Einstein credits Faraday with being the inspiration behind the theory of relativity.

The last stop on the tour was the Goldhammer sepulchre, Highgate’s only 21^st century mausoleum, completed in 2019 and built from Indiana limestone, just like the Empire State Building.

Its 1920s-inspired design features pomegranates on the tall, metal doors, and the whole thing looks pretty imposing. It’s actually quite jarring to see such a newly-built sepulchre, and is the first of its kind to be built in Highgate in over 90 years.

After the tour was finished and we were all firmly back in the land of the living, we sat for a nice cuppa in the west side courtyard and went for another short walk by ourselves.

George Michael’s grave is not included on the tour, as his family wish for privacy, and have only recently agreed for the tour guides to point out his resting place at all. We had a fan in our group, so we went to his grave so she could go and pay her respects. Photography of George Michael’s grave is prohibited following the wishes of his family, and he is interred under his birth name, Georgios Panayiotou.

What we thought

We had such an interesting time at the cemetery and could easily have spent much longer there. An adult tour ticket is £15, which includes the tour itself, plus entry to both the west and east sides of the cemetery, and exclusive entry to the Terrace Catacombs.

Julia, our fantastic tour guide, thanked us profusely for taking the tour and supporting the Friends of Highgate Cemetery. Highgate spent a number of years abandoned, and even now it relies on ticket proceeds for the upkeep. It is not publicly funded despite its incredible historical importance and its status as a nature reserve.

The guides are volunteers, but their incredible amount of knowledge and their friendly approach would have you thinking they were professionals through and through.

If you’re planning to visit you should know that photography is allowed in the cemetery, but the rules of basic common sense and compassion apply. The guides are friendly, but they will be stern if they need to be!

A visit to the cemetery doesn’t have to be a macabre and morbid affair, in fact it can be moving, educational and enjoyable. We visited a cemetery in Bristol back in 2019, which was a similar experience.

Ultimately the most important thing is to appreciate the guides, respect the site and keep alive the memories of the buried.

We learnt a lot about Victorian London and prominent figures often forgotten, all whilst supporting the preservation and upkeep of one of the world’s most important (and in our opinion, beautiful) cemeteries.