Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery, next to Waterloo Park is definitely worth a visit. Opened in 1839 as a response to the intolerable burial conditions in London, Highgate is the resting-place for numerous famous and interesting people. A walk through the cemetery is like a walk through a Victorian-Gothic period drama. Overgrown briars, mature leafy trees, eroded gravestones and a colony of foxes all combine to give a unique atmospheric effect. When it was opened, the cemetery was so popular for its ornate catacombs and views of the city that it was extended in 1857.Over the years the cemetery became dilapidated and fell into disrepair until the Friends of Highgate Cemetery was formed and set about controlling the wild vegetation. Highgate contains the finest collection of Victorian funerary architecture in Britain. Two buildings are listed Grade I, two Grade II* and over 60 Grade II. In the Western Cemetery the Lebanon Circle Vaults, the Egyptian Avenue and the Julius Beer Mausoleum (built to spoil the view of a particular gentleman he had a disagreement with) are of particular interest. The Terrace Catacombs are susposedly the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. Those buried in the cemetery include George Elliot, who died in 1880, the philosopher Herbert Spencer, Vanessa Bell, the Bloomsbury painter and the much-visited grave of Karl Marx. Tours along the western side may pass the Rossetti family tomb, Dickens's family (he himself is in Westminster), Charles Chubb of the locks and Charles Cruft, founder of the dog show.
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