The history and mystery of Highgate Cemetery

Imagine this: it’s February, a Monday morning in London, and it has been raining for days. The weather is absolute shit.

A day before, I puked my life out in an incredibly beautiful and, important to mention, haunted old pub. Dragging myself out of bed felt like hell, but there was no way I was canceling my Highgate Cemetery tour. Even if they had to bury me there because I died on the tour, I was going.

A cemetery that left me speechless

Visiting this cemetery was at the top of my London to-do list. My friends had already done the tour the last time they were here, so I went alone. And even though they had told me a few stories about it, I was not prepared for how much it would blow my mind.

So, picture this. It is still that miserable Monday morning, still raining, and I am standing in front of the cemetery entrance with my jaw on the floor because how the hell can a cemetery entrance look this pretty?

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A bit of history

Highgate isn’t just any cemetery. It’s one of London’s Magnificent Seven, a group of grand, private cemeteries built in the 19th century when churchyards simply couldn’t keep up. Along with Highgate, the others include Brompton Cemetery, Nunhead Cemetery, Kensal Green Cemetery, West Norwood Cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, and Tower Hamlets Cemetery.

Before that, Londoners were buried inside churches if they were wealthy enough, or crammed into overcrowded graveyards if they weren’t. By the early 1800s, the city was running out of space, and the smell alone was enough to push Parliament into action. So, they built seven cemeteries outside the city, and Highgate became one of the most famous.

Highgate Cemetery is divided into two sections:

• West Cemetery – The older, more atmospheric side with grand Victorian tombs, winding paths, and a gothic feel.

• East Cemetery – The more modern side, open for self-guided visits. It’s home to notable graves like Karl Marx, George Eliot, Roger Lloyd-Pack and many more.

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I mean, who doesn’t love a cemetery walk?

It might sound weird to take a tour of a cemetery, but trust me, there is a good reason. The West side of the cemetery is only accessible via guided tour to protect its historic sites and delicate architecture.

My tour guide was an older man named Nigel. After retiring and moving back to London, he started giving tours again. He had actually done the same tours back in the 90s, so he had a personal history with the cemetery and could tell us not only about its past but also about how much had changed over the years.

One mind-blowing fact? All the tour guides do this voluntarily. No one gets paid to walk people around for an hour and a half, even in the freezing rain, through deep mud, carefully stepping between century-old gravestones. And mind you, many of them are older people who are retired.

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The people who keep it alive

How weird is it to say you’re keeping alive a place where dead people rest? Hah, anyways.

By the 1960s and 70s, Highgate Cemetery had fallen into complete ruin. Once a grand resting place, it had become overgrown, vandalized, and abandoned. Graves were collapsing, ivy covered everything, and the silence attracted grave robbers and occultists.

Recognizing the need to preserve it, a group of dedicated volunteers formed The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust in 1975. They took on the big task of restoring the cemetery while keeping its romantic, gothic decay intact. They even bought the cemetery from its failing owners and have been maintaining it ever since.

That is why you have guided tours. All the money goes directly into keeping the cemetery preserved.

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What I did not expect to find?

Honestly, I was not expecting that much from the tour itself. I mostly just wanted to explore the cemetery and visit some special graves for myself, such as the ones from George Michael – whose voice and music were basically my childhood lullabies, Karl Marx – because, well, as a leftie, his grave was kind of a big deal and Roger Lloyd-Pack – who played Trotter in Only Fools and Horses, a British sitcom that was a huge part of my growing up and my first taste of British comedy, which I am a big fan of.

So I had my own list of things I wanted to see. Everything else was just a bonus. But I had no idea how interesting this tour was actually going to be.

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The stories that stay with you

Our guide took us to specific graves and told us the stories behind the people buried there. Who they were, what they loved, what they did, and how they ended up here.

A story that caught my eye is about the Rossetti family drama.

The Rossetti family tomb is famous not just for being the resting place of Elizabeth Siddall, wife of famous English painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but also for what he did after her death.

Overcome with grief, Rossetti buried a book of his unpublished poems he wrote to her, with her. Years later, regret (and financial struggles) led him to exhume the coffin and retrieve the book. Talk about goth.

One fascinating detail about Karl Marx’s grave is that he isn’t alone – he’s surrounded by the graves of socialists, communists, and activists who dedicated their lives to fighting for a better world. These individuals came from all over, Britain, Iraq, Iran, South Africa… and their headstones stand as lasting tributes to their causes. Seeing this history etched in stone was really special for me.

I walked a lot through both the West and East sides of the cemetery, reading the messages engraved in stone. And at the end of my very cold, very wet walk, I came across one gravestone that kinda broke me.

It read:

"To a great man, the essence of our lives, the polestar of my existence, the love of my life."

A lot of little things on this trip made me think about the people I have lost. Walking through this cemetery, reading these tributes to love and loss, it felt like a button was pushed and I needed to let go.

This was truly one of the most unforgettable travel experiences I’ve ever had. I could write pages about the cemetery, but if you ever get the chance to visit, I highly recommend seeing it for yourself.

There’s so much more to discover, and I promise it’s an experience you won’t forget. It is worth every penny and every minute of your time.

P.S. An interesting fact about Highgate Cemetery is that it’s home to a surprising amount of wildlife, including foxes. During our visit, just a few meters in front of us, we spotted a “local” pregnant fox wandering through the gravestones.

More on the cemetery and some people and gravestones posted:

Highgate Cemetery – website link

Karl Marx – philosopher, economist, and political theorist
Roger Lloyd-Pack – British actor
Nazhad Ahmad Aziz Agha – deputy leader of the Parliament of Kurdistan
Dr. Yusuf Mohamed Dadoo – South African Communist and an anti-apartheid activist
Manuchehr Sabetian – Iranian consulting surgeon, humanist, and activist
Mansoor Hekmat – Iranian Marxist, revolutionary and leader of the Worker-communist movement
Dante Gabriel Rossetti – English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family