The Fleet heads underground as it exits Hampstead Heath across Highgate Road, between the post office and the tennis courts. It used to run along the surface beside wiggly Swains Lane, but today it lies buried deep beneath a blanket of high class Victorian suburbia. In its higher reaches Swains Lane is a surprisingly steep and narrow road, more San Francisco than central London. A tributary of the Fleet once tumbled down this hillside from the heights of Highgate and, almost precisely where this branch of the river used to start, is the most amazing cemetery in the capital.
Highgate Cemetery was one of London's first private graveyards, opened in 1839 when local churchyards became too densely populated. There are ornate headstones, giant mausoleums and magnificent tombs, all laid out across the hillside in an imposing Gothic style. Up at the summit the Circle of Lebanon is a ring of sunken burial vaults centred around a tall cedar tree, the final resting place of lesbian novelist Radclyffe Hall (amongst others). Close by is the Egyptian Avenue, a stone tunnel with columned entrance worthy of an Indiana Jones film set. Admittance to the old cemetery is by guided tour only, run by quirky ageing volunteers who insist on due reverence (and make sure you've turned your mobile off). My dad and I were lucky enough to visit three years ago, and we found the place dark, mysterious and magical. Perfect setting for a vampire story, it is.
So successful was Highgate Cemetery that an extension was built across the road on the eastern side a few years later, this rather flatter and more open. It's here amongst angelic headstones that some really famous people are buried, and you can walk in their presence for the bargain price of two pounds (plus another quid for your camera). Many make a special pilgrimage here to pay homage at the grave of KarlMarx, whose bearded stony features stare down from the top of a large granite plinth inscribed with the words "Workers of all lands unite". Elsewhere you may stumble across the remains of authoress George Eliot, bookshop founder William Foyle, top scientist Michael Faraday, poet Christina Rossetti, postage stamp inventor Sir Rowland Hill, actor Sir Ralph Richardson and comedian Max Wall. One of the most recent burials (in 2001) was that of author and hitchhiker Douglas Adams, although his grave is unmarked. And, in amongst all the great and good, lie the undistinguished Victorian middle class - gone but not forgotten.
Reviewing the Fleet
Highgate Cemetery was one of London's first private graveyards, opened in 1839 when local churchyards became too densely populated. There are ornate headstones, giant mausoleums and magnificent tombs, all laid out across the hillside in an imposing Gothic style. Up at the summit the Circle of Lebanon is a ring of sunken burial vaults centred around a tall cedar tree, the final resting place of lesbian novelist Radclyffe Hall (amongst others). Close by is the Egyptian Avenue, a stone tunnel with columned entrance worthy of an Indiana Jones film set. Admittance to the old cemetery is by guided tour only, run by quirky ageing volunteers who insist on due reverence (and make sure you've turned your mobile off). My dad and I were lucky enough to visit three years ago, and we found the place dark, mysterious and magical. Perfect setting for a vampire story, it is.
Reviewing the Fleet
