Highgate Cemetery
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'''Highgate Cemetery''' is a List of famous cemeteries|famous cemetery located in Highgate, London, England.
The cemetery in its original form (the older, Western part) was opened in 1839, part of an initiative to provide seven large, modern cemeteries (known as the "Magnificent Seven, London|Magnificent Seven") in a ring round the outside of London. The inner-city cemeteries, mostly the graveyards attached to individual churches, had long been unable to cope with the number of burials and were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the dead.
Highgate, like the others, soon became a fashionable place for burials and was much admired and visited. The Victorian era|Victorian attitude to death and its presentation led to the creation of a wealth of Gothic architecture|Gothic tombs and buildings. It occupies a spectacular south-facing hillside site slightly downhill from the top of the hill of Highgate itself, next to Waterlow Park, both of which were part of the former Dartmouth Park which covered the area.
In 1854, the area to the east of the original area across Swains Lane was purchased to form the eastern part of the cemetery. This part is still used today for burials.
The cemetery's grounds are full of Old growth|old-growth trees, shrubbery and wildflowers that are a haven for birds and small animals like hedgehogs. The Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon (topped by a huge Lebanon Cedar|Cedar of Lebanon) feature tombs, vaults and winding paths dug into hillsides. For its protection, the oldest section, which holds an impressive collection of Victorian mausoleums and gravestones, plus elaborately carved tombs, allows admission only in tour groups. The newer section, which contains most of the angel statuary, can be toured unescorted.
Although its most famous occupant in the east cemetery is probably Karl Marx (whose tomb's most recent bombing is still recalled by some Highgate residents), there are several prominent Victorians buried here. Interments include:
Douglas Adams — author of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' and other novels, his grave is currently unmarked awaiting a decision about its proposed headstone in the shape of the number "42"
Edward Hodges Baily — sculptor
John Singleton Copley — artist
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) — novelist
Michael Faraday — scientist
Radclyffe Hall — author of ''The Well of Loneliness'' and other novels
Karl Marx|Karl Heinrich Marx — father of Marxism|Marxist philosophy, the basis of Communism
Henry Moore (painter)|Henry Moore, (1841–-893) — marine painter
Ralph Richardson — actor
Elizabeth Siddall — wife and model of artist/poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Christina Rossetti — poet
Donald Smith|Sir Donald Alexander Smith — Canada|Canadian railway financier and diplomat
Herbert Spencer — creator of social Darwinism
Arthur Waley — translator and oriental scholar
Mrs Henry Wood — author
Charles Lucy — artist
The nearest transport link to the cemetery is Archway tube station|Archway.
Additionally, the Highgate Cemetery is well known for its occult past, being the site of the controversial Highgate Vampire (as written by Bishop Sean Manchester).
See also
List of famous cemeteries|List of other famous cemeteries
External links
http://highgate-cemetery.org/ http://www.tales.ndirect.co.uk/SEXTON_TALE.HTML http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Vampire%20Research%20Society.htm
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