Quite Contrary: Highgate Cemetery

I sometimes think that I am old. Not because I found my first grey hair (which I did) or because my knees pop sometimes when I stand up (which they do). It's something much subtler than that. There are a significant number of instances where Adrian and I are the youngest people in the room/tour group/theatre/what-have-you. Most of the time by a good twenty years.

This happened again when we visited Highgate Cemetery. Oh well... Maybe we are just weird...

Highgate Cemetery is a massive Victorian cemetery that covers 37 acres with an estimated 53,000 graves. When it opened, it was considered the poshest place to be buried and was more like a park than a modern cemetery. It fell into disrepair in the 1970s due to lack of funding. Because no one was tending the cemetery for so long, nature slowly took over the winding paths and gravestones. It has been transformed from a well-maintained park to a overrun, forgotten time capsule. It has since been taken over by a charity that works to restore it.

Adrian and I went on a fantastically sunny summer's day, but you could hardly see the sun through the thick canopy of trees. The meandering paths took us through a sea of gravestones, some of which we could hardly see because of all the ivy covering them. Many of the stones had been knocked over and broken, some due to the passage of time and some due to vandalism. The graves were packed in so tightly, if I had left the path, I would have no choice but to climb over the stones to get anywhere.

The west side of the cemetery can only be seen via guided tour, which was simultaneously nice and disappointing. It was interesting to learn so much about the history of the cemetery, some of the people buried there, and the symbolism behind some of the actual gravestones from someone who knew all about it, but there was a part of me that just wanted to wander and get lost among the serene landscape.

Because the cemetery has remained undisturbed for so long, it is an ideal place for wildlife. In fact, within certain mausoleums, there is a type of cave spider that had never before been discovered!

The inside of one of the mausoleums. (Not the one with the spiders.)

Despite being surrounded by dead people and dilapidated graves, the cemetery was not at creepy. It was very peaceful and quiet. I could see how in it's heyday, it would have been a beautiful picnicking location.

This is pretty much what everything looked like away from the path.

There were so many unique gravestones, nothing at all like the modern slabs of rock. The Victorians were obsessed with symbolism, so the markers were covered with of carvings of eternal flames, urns, and carefully draped fabrics... One of the more unique (and famous) stones was this one.

For any Doctor Who fans out there, I did not blink.

Apparently, for a long time, the staff had no idea that the angel was there, as it was covered in ivy. When one of the volunteers uncovered it, they found this amazing statue. I wish I had been able to get a better picture of it...

One of the volunteers. He was repairing a gravestone that had fallen over.

The cemetery went on and on, but unfortunately, the guided tour only lasted an hour. Luckily for us, there was the east side of the cemetery!

The east side of Highgate is slightly more kept-up in places, but there were many parts of it where Adrian and I were surrounded by dilapidated headstones with no paths in sight. There was no tour, so we were free to wander wherever we liked.

This part of the cemetery seemed more like a modern cemetery than the western side. The paths were less windy, there were fewer trees, and (in some places) there were more manicured "lawns". Despite this, there were still portions that looked like they hadn't been touched for decades.

It was so easy to get lost amongst the graves. Everywhere we looked, there were rows and rows of markers. As we stepped over and around headstones, the light trickled down through the lace of the treetops. It was beautifully, poetic.