A few months back we went to Highgate Cemetary West side on a guided tour with su’s family. We had her sister and two boys staying with us in the living room for 2 weeks. The whole trip was crazy fun, unlike anything we’ve done before, except for maybe big family events when WE were the kids! How odd to be on the other side of that…
Highgate West is pretty fantastic – except for the areas where they’ve been cleaning and conserving. They see their mission there as being to bring the cemetary back to its original glory. My preference, and what the Victorians also liked about it in its latter, ruinous stages, was the romantic decay – tumbling graves, uneven movements of the earth, total overgrowth.
Here are some modestly cleaned up areas. Apparently parts of the new Fantastic Beasts movie were filmed here too – so look out for that!
Entrance to a tomb arcade. Many of the tombs inside here were unpopular, because Victorians wanted somewhere to come spend the day and picnic with family, and inside here was quite gloomy.
The bit where Fantastic Beasts 2 filmed.
Some of the uneven decay remains.
Leveled off but still overgrown.
The path out. A nicer place to set out a picnic blanket and let the kids go wild.