Having spent an hour in the west side of Highgate, I decided to make a move to the east side. At the gate, I showed my both-sides ticket to the attendant. She gave me another very helpful map, which contained a list of all of the notable people you can visit.

A Mystery Death

One of the names caught my eye immediately, and his was the first grave I actively sought out. It was Jeremiah Duggan, a British man studying in Paris, who died in Germany in 2003. He had been struck several times by cars on a dual carriageway. Gruesome, but an unfortunate accident, right? Wrong! …Maybe.

The circumstances of Jeremiah’s death have been the subject of dispute and speculation pretty much ever since it happened. This is due to a number of factors, the biggie being his connection to the alleged far-left cult, the LaRouche movement.

To muddy the water more, Jeremiah’s mother received a distressed phone call from her son just 50 minutes before his death. According to her, he expressed that ‘they’ were after him and that he didn’t feel safe. She also said he would never end his own life, but I don’t tend to take much stock in family members saying that. Unfortunately, suicide can seemingly come ‘out of nowhere’ in a lot of cases.

HOWEVER, Jeremiah’s mum’s account jibes with forensic findings, in that they were inconsistent with the initial knee-jerk verdict of suicide. Jeremiah had unexplained injuries that indicated ‘an altercation’ that had occurred before his death. British courts also ruled that he had died ‘in a state of terror’.

This is a massively condensed overview of his case, so definitely go and read more about it. And have a gander at the enormous controversy section on the LRM’s Wikipedia page. It’s very strange.

The Elusive Grave of Jeremiah Duggan

Jeremiah’s story fascinated me, but also moved me. He was only 22 at his passing, a whole ten years younger than I am today. It seems so unfair that he died like that. And now his peace is forever marred by the ‘what ifs’ and mystery. I can’t imagine what his family have gone through ever since.

As you can see from the photo above, Jeremiah’s grave is overflowing with greenery. There is a tombstone in there somewhere. Honestly, I very nearly missed him! Luckily, the map told me I was in approximately the right place, so I looked closer.

I’m unsure if the riot of plants is a deliberate choice, or if the grave hadn’t been tended to for a while, but the effect was the same. The plants are wild and free, thriving with life. It’s a very joyful grave (if there can be such a thing), and speaks to a vibrant young man taken way too soon. My heart broke for him.

Famous Graves

Highgate Cemetery has a lot of famous people buried there. Like, a lot. I couldn’t possibly go through them all, so I’ve picked some of my favourite notable graves. Because of course I have favourite graves. Do you know me at all??

Patrick Caulfield

I honestly can’t say that I’m familiar with Caulfield’s art. Having had a quick butcher’s on Google, I got the gist of it. There are a few pieces, like Forecourt and Santa Margherita Ligure, that I really like.  But generally, the pop-art style isn’t my thing.

What is my thing is Caulfield’s incredible tombstone – a matte-black slab with a matching stepped headstone that simply reads ‘DEAD’. Apparently, when asked what he’d like his epitaph to say, Caulfield drily responded: “Dead, of course.” Now I’m a fan – that dry, dark sense of humour closely matches my own and I love him for that.

Unbeknown to anyone else, my man had actually designed this in advance. When he died in 2005, the gravestone was constructed according to his instructions. Now I have another Death Goal: Design my own tombstone, and it has to be at least as funny as Patrick Caulfield’s.

Jeremy Beadle

Jeremy Beadle MBE was a TV and radio personality, writer, and producer. He was very prolific in the 80s and 90s. As well as his face work, he worked behind the scenes writing material for a lot of big names including Sir Terry Wogan and Noel Edmonds.

Eighties kids will know Jeremy best from the Fun Factory TV show. Grown-ups from then will remember him better from Beadle’s About, a practical joke show (and the world’s longest-running hidden camera style programme).

As a nineties kid, though, my best memory of Jeremy Beadle was as the host of You’ve Been Framed. For non-UK readers, this is a clip show of people having mishaps, funny moments involving people’s kids or pets, and general silliness. Think along the lines of America’s Funniest Home Videos, or YouTube fail compilations. It would have my whole family in stitches when we’d watch it in the evening, and I’m still fondly nostalgic about it. YBF still ran until 2022, with the brilliant Harry Hill at the helm.

I’ve not covered even half of Jeremy Beadle’s extraordinary life and career, so here’s a Wiki link for more information. He was a brilliant man, and his gravestone is a wonderful reflection of that. There’s a small collection of stone books propped at the bottom, and the epitaph describes Beadle as a ‘writer, presenter, curator of oddities’. I honestly wouldn’t mind being described that way when I die!

Ann Jewson Crisp

WARNING: We’ve got another tear-jerking dog story here. Now, Ann Jewson Crisp wasn’t a famous person in life (though she did live to the age of 94!), but her grave has become notable because of its sweet dedication to her beloved dog, Emperor.

Above the epitaph about Ann, a relief portrait of the dog peers out at you. He’s been very weathered by the elements of thirty years, but you can still see the alert expression on his face. Emperor forever guards his mistress while she sleeps underneath the soil. Truly a good boy!

Harry Thornton

Now, I’d heard about this tombstone before I went to Highgate and was keen to see it for myself. It’s a scaled-down, marble grand piano marking the grave of Harry Thornton. Mr Thornton was a pianist (no, really!?) who, along with his wife, entertained troops with music during the First World War. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards in the 1918 flu pandemic.

I’ll warn you that, despite how distinctive Thornton’s tomb is, it can easily be missed! He’s set back from the path a fair bit, behind other stones, so make sure you keep your peepers peepin’. Even with the map, I had to walk back and forth for a while.

…In fairness, this could also be because I have terrible eyesight and am very, very dim.

You can see in the picture that the lid of the piano is much brighter and cleaner than the rest of the monument. That’s because the original lid went missing. I couldn’t find out whether it just broke with time, or if it was nicked (what a weird thing to steal). The replacement needs time to get nice and weathered to match the rest.

Apparently there was also a music stand with a relief portrait of Harry on the piano, but that’s gone now. Such a shame, but it doesn’t make the tombstone any less beautiful. Despite being made of marble, it looks so delicate and pretty – such a charming monument.

Me being me, I immediately sent a photo of it to my friend (a professional pianist) saying “gonna get u this when ur dead”.

Clive Exton

To my shame, I didn’t immediately recognise Clive Exton’s name when I took a photo of his tombstone. I just loved his monument. Saying that, I did read up on him back at home and found out that he was a pretty significant stage-and-screenwriter.

Mr Exton’s specialty was crime and mystery drama. If you pictured Hercule Poirot, I’m glad because Clive Exton literally wrote the scripts for the TV show! He also wrote for massive British hits like Jeeves and Wooster and Rosemary & Thyme.

As well as telly, Clive also adapted stories for the stage, including Murder is Easy by the mother of all mystery, Agatha Christie (did I do a rhyme?). Man was a genius.

Clive Exton died in 2007, of brain cancer, which seems exceptionally cruel for such a brilliant mind. Not that cancer is ever not cruel, but you know what I mean.

What I loved about Clive’s grave is the serene simplicity:

His name, birth and death years, and simply: a writer. It should’ve been a blink-and-you-miss it monument, but it jumped right out at me (not literally, though that would’ve been good).

I stopped in my tracks, just grabbed by the clean lines, the neat font, and the quiet confidence of his epitaph. Standing there, I felt suddenly very connected to this man who died when I hadn’t even left secondary school yet. It was magic.

Malcolm McLaren

I knew this name because of the Sex Pistols, mostly. If you’re into punk subculture, fashion, or the music industry, you’ll almost certainly have heard of him too. Malcolm McLaren was both a fashion designer and music manager, though he also dabbled in TV production, politics, and visual art.

McLaren started out with a tiny section at the back of a shop, selling records and army surplus/dead stock clothing. His at-the-time girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood, began to mend, adapt, and customise the clothing, and we all know how that turned out! Their shop, Sex, became the place for punks and wayward youths to find interesting, provocative, one-of-a-kind clothing. McLaren and Westwood even provided costume designs for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I didn’t know!

Through the shop, Malcolm met the first incarnation of the Sex Pistols, which launched his music management career. He also managed Adam and the Ants (who I love!) and advised other bands.

Despite fallings-out with bandmates, plagiarism controversies, and just generally being a divisive and contradictory personality, Mr McLaren’s public perception is still mostly positive. It certainly can’t be denied that he was a very talented guy who made lots of cool things happen.

This coolness and style is reflected in Malcolm’s tombstone. It’s made of pitch-black granite, with a Warner Bros-esque badge on top that bears his initials. On the stone is a very detailed bronze death mask of Malcolm. His expression almost looks like a smirk, which I think suits him very well!

Beneath the death mask is the quote: Better a spectacular failure, than a benign success. I found this notion thought-provoking and inspiring. Also contradictory, which I have a sneaking suspicion was Mr McLaren’s exact aim.

Anna Mahler

Anna Mahler was an Austrian sculptor and painter. I want to lead with that before I say that yes, she was the daughter of legendary composer Gustav Mahler. Nicknamed ‘Gucki’ by her parents because of her big eyes (Editor’s Note: ‘gucken’ is the verb for peeking in German), Anna was surrounded by music and the arts from birth. She was also surrounded by loss – her older sister died of scarlet fever when Anna was just 3, and Gustav himself died before she even saw her seventh birthday.

I imagine it was expected that Frau Mahler would become a musician or composer, like her father. But she subverted expectations by becoming an artist. First she studied painting, but found her true calling in sculpting.

In 1938, Anna fled Nazi Austria and settled in Hampstead, London. However, she didn’t stay there forever. I found out that she had actually moved to Italy later on. She only died in London because she was visiting her daughter, Marina. That was in 1988, at the age of 83, so not bad innings! I imagine Marina was probably the one who decided to bury her mother in Highgate.

The Weeping Woman

Anna’s grave is marked with a copy of one of her sculptures, Vision. I honestly couldn’t find much information on the sculpture itself, or which material the one on her grave is made of. In any case, it’s a weathered image of a weeping woman.

It reminded me of the poem Immortality by Clare Warner, which opens with the line: do not stand at my grave and weep. I found the sculpture very sad and touching. The small, slight figure almost looks like she’s slowly withering away. Her hands hide her face but even without an expression, you can feel her profound grief. If the grave marker is only a copy, I imagine Mahler’s original Vision must’ve been exceptionally moving.

It was also a bit creepy, though. The hands over the face called to mind the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who and there’s nothing I fear more (except for rabies and getting on the bus). Compulsively, I found myself trying my best not to blink. Thanks a lot, David Tennant.

The creep factor didn’t take away from the overall sad beauty of the grave, though. As Anna Mahler herself once said: “Value in art is not determined by superficial characteristics, but by the ability to reach and touch our innermost feelings.”

Be aware that this is another one that’s marked on the map, but you have to look out for. The standing figure isn’t very tall, and she’s up the hill a ways so other graves can easily conceal her. Not to mention a rather large shrub stood almost right in front of her, which is quite rude.

Finding Karl Marx

I spent some time looking for the original grave of Karl Marx. It was marked (Marxed?) on the map but only approximately, as it’s located in a very crowded and old part of the cemetery. Try as I might, I couldn’t see it among the many headstones and long grasses growing hither and thither. So there’s a challenge if you ever visit Highgate: try to find Marx’s ‘real’ grave site! (If you have managed this, please comment and feel free to gloat)

The new, ‘official’ monument to Marx was far easier to spot. Impossible to miss, actually. I checked the map and said to myself “Now, he should be just around this corner. I’d better keep my eyes peeled.”

I needn’t have worried – the monument is BIG. Like, really bloody big. And it’s topped with a huge bust of Herr Marx. It’s slightly creepy, to be honest, and somehow manages to even look Marxist. No, I can’t explain. Just look at this thing:

Terrifying.

When I was done looking at that behemoth in utter dismay (and Karl Marx was done glaring back at me), I carried on along the path that would lead me back to the way I came in to Highgate’s east side. A girl was walking up the path towards me. She looked to be around my age, maybe a bit younger; it’s so hard to guess these days.

As we were about to pass, she stopped me and asked if I knew where the Marx tomb was. I replied that OH BOY DID I, and gave some simple instructions. “You’re heading right for him. Just follow this path, and look to your right. You cannot miss him even if you tried.” She laughed, and I hope it was even funnier when she actually got there and saw what I now call the ‘Massive Marx Mug’.

The Bowl of Pens

After that encounter, I slowed down to idly look around on the way out. Suddenly, I spied a bowl full of pens. It was just sitting there on the grass at the side of the path. Being incurably obsessed with stationery, it caught my eye and I walked over to investigate.

The bowl had been filled with soft soil and the pens were all jutting out of it or laid on top when there was no more space. There were so many pens.

From standing in front of the big bowl, my eyes naturally tracked up the hill to a small pen pot (also filled with pens). They sat in front of an understated headstone, and I was intrigued. It took shuffling up the hill a bit and squinting for my astigmatism to cooperate to see the answer to the riddle.

The grave belonged to none other than Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Fans like to come and leave him pens when they visit, and it’s gotten quite out of hand.

The pens are specifically ballpoints, and are a reference to a part in HGTTG. In the book, it’s established that all ballpoint pens disappear to a ballpoint-utopia planet, and that’s why you can never find your pen after you’ve left it unattended. I think Mr Adams would be tickled pink by people enjoying this reference enough to leave him pens (so he’ll never run out!).

For the first time in probably decades, I didn’t actually have a pen on me so I couldn’t add my own to the collection. Next time I’m in Highgate, I will specifically pack a Bic biro (the best and I won’t hear otherwise) to gift him.

When I die, I would also like people to leave me pens. I love pens.

A Hitchhiker’s Guide

Unwittingly, I became a tour guide again shortly after leaving Douglas’ grave. I was walking by a bench, on which sat two young children with their mum. Their Dad was standing in front of the bench and talking enthusiastically about finding someone specific. They were American and obviously visiting Highgate for the first time.

When one of the kids said, “What did he write again?” I had an inkling I knew who the man wanted to see. An inkling that was confirmed when I saw that he was wearing a HGTTG t-shirt!

I decided to give them the Stereotypical Polite British Person experience, as a treat. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing… Are you looking for Douglas Adams? Because you’re on the right track – if you just walk up the path a little way, you’ll see a bowl full of pens. Look straight up from there, and you’ll see his headstone. It has more pens in front of it, so you’ll definitely spot him.”

The guy thanked me warmly, and I commented that he was definitely dressed for the occasion. He said the funny part was that he hadn’t even known that Douglas Adams was buried in Highgate Cemetery until they got the map! The t-shirt wasn’t planned. I quickly quipped that obviously the cosmos were interfering to make it happen, and I left his family on a wave of laughter. It was a lovely, lovely interaction.

My Highgate Verdict

Highgate Cemetery was truly a joy to visit, and has real returnability. I’m fairly sure that I just made that word up, but you’re smart folk, you get what I mean. There is still lots that I haven’t seen, and visiting in different seasons would change the whole feeling and mood of the place. In the future, I would be happy to return (and probably more than once).

I’m going to be really British as usual and say that it was an even better visit because the weather was alright, dry and warm. The sun even peeked out a few times, much to the fright of me and the other Brits in the cemetery. The living ones, I mean. I hope.

Honestly, I didn’t find Highgate at all spooky (though I might change my mind if I were to spend a night in there). It’s peaceful and pretty. The Friends have really taken care of it and made it a very pleasant place to walk around.

It also helped that I went at a seemingly off-peak time. There was hardly anyone else in the west side so I got to wander around by myself, in the still silence. It was so tranquil. I also don’t think the sudden bell tolling would’ve been anywhere near as effective if the place was packed.

The east side of Highgate was a bit busier, probably because I got over there later in the morning. But it still wasn’t horrendously packed, and I think Highgate is large enough that people can generally spread out.

The general Highgate area is gorgeous too. If you’re visiting London and want to see some old charm, have a wander around before you hit the cemetery. I’ll admit that I pulled up house prices in Highgate while I was there. Spoiler alert: I cannot afford them.

Just so you know, Highgate is one of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries. If you’re a taphophile, a good challenge would be to try to visit all of them. That’s definitely a challenge I’m taking on (and will write about – lucky, lucky you!).

Finally, the cemetery is also just a good place to get your steps in or have a peaceful walk without having to leave London entirely.

Keeping Highgate Alive

As it receives no council funding, Highgate relies on a National Lottery Heritage Fund, ticket fees, and donations to keep going. I’ve bought a membership (only £20 a year!) but you can opt to make one-off donations as-and-when. You can also volunteer at the cemetery, which I would absolutely do if I lived in London! If you’re planning on dying at some point (vampires need not apply), you can even leave Highgate a legacy in your will.

As always I want to note that I’m not being paid or sponsored for this post. I genuinely believe that Highgate deserves the support as so many people enjoy its beauty and historical value. Also I imagine the ghosts will thank you for preserving their final resting place, just saying.

Let me know what you think about this beautiful necropolis in the comments. If you’ve been, tell me your favourite bit! Which famous graves did you spot?

Share this post with people you know who’ve been, or who want to go…. or who might not know about Highgate and would be interested!