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December 29, 2023 103 mins
Blurry Photober is late this year, but David is back with an episode all about Highgate Cemetery! An incredible feat of gothic greatness, Highgate Cemetery has an interesting history and hauntings to boot. David had the fortune to take a tour of the Grade I historic location, and also interviewed the tour guide, John Waite. John and David go over the history of the cemetery, including its inception, how it fell to disrepair, and how it was revived. David then gets into the history of the hauntings which are said to happen. Mysterious top-hatted figures, forlorn spectres, and rumors of vampires have plagued the boneyard for decades. David discusses these stories as well as the infamous occultist feud between David Farrant and Sean Manchester. Take a history-heavy tour of a hauntingly beautiful location in this episode of Blurry Photos!

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Music
Danse Macabre, Lightless Dawn, Ossuary 5 - Rest, Phantasm, Zombie Hoodoo – Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0


Sources
Jarvis, Jacob. Highgate Cemetery mourns loss of 200-year-old cedar tree which ‘felt like the death of a relative’. The Standard. London. Aug. 10, 2019. Web. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/highgate-cemetery-mourns-loss-of-iconic-cedar-of-lebanon-which-felt-like-the-death-of-a-relative-a4207976.html

Hussein, Meyrem. Highgate Cemetery ghost or trick of the light? Photographer snaps suspected spectre. Ham & High. London. Dec. 5, 2012. Web. https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/21383368.highgate-cemetery-ghost-trick-light-photographer-snaps-suspected-spectre/

Volpe, Sam. Highgate ‘vampire hunter’ dies half a century after supernatural panic gripped community. Ham & High. London. Apr. 24, 2019. Web. https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/lifestyle/21353447.highgate-vampire-hunter-dies-half-century-supernatural-panic-gripped-community/

My Noiseless Friend. New Zealand Herald. Vol. V, Issue 1531. Page 7. Oct. 21, 1868. Web. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18681021.2.36

Kemp, Sam. The Strange Tale of the Highgate Vampire. Far Out Magazine. UK. Aug. 4, 2022. Web. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/strange-tale-of-highgate-vampire/

Garcia, Francisco. The Decades-Long Rivalry of London's Two Vampire Hunters. Vice. Feb. 5, 2020. Web. https://www.vice.com/en/article/akwkgj/highgate-vampire-history-sean-manchester
Farrant, David. The Highgate Vampire. David Farrant Website. UK. Web. https://davidfarrant.org/the-highgate-vampire/

Galton, Bridget. The ghosts of Hampstead and Highgate. Ham & High. London. Oct. 13, 2019. Web. https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/23846558.ghosts-hampstead-highgate/

Staff. The Horror of the Dead. The Unredacted. Dec. 5, 2016. Web. https://theunredacted.com/the-highgate-vampire-horror-of-the-dead/

Quackenbush, Thomm. THE BIZARRE TRUE STORY OF THE HIGHGATE VAMPIRE FEUD. Grunge. Aug. 21, 2023. Web. https://www.grunge.com/402692/the-bizarre-true-story-of-the-highgate-vampire-feud/

Ian. The Highgate Vampire – How It All Began – by David Farrant. Mysterious Britain & Ireland. Mar. 15, 2009. Web. .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Far spread below Death London War.It's cloud by day, its fire by
night, yet scarce with heavenly presence. There shrined in the smoke or pallid
light, dappled ashen stone, repletewith twisting vines and dripping moss riddles,

(00:32):
The gentle nooks and slopes of HighgateHill lacerated by reposeful meandering pathways like a
Gothic bazaar, presenting wares to passerby. Tombs, sculptures, headstones,
obelisks, and angels stand dutifully nestledwithin a dense quilt of trees, flowers

(00:55):
and shrubs. Mausoleums huddled together amongarchitecture of various entrancing, exotic styles.
One moment you're in ancient Egypt,another ancient Rome. Incessant troops from that
vast throng withdraw to silent colonies,where houses low are fair and strong,

(01:18):
though ruins all that dwell in these, The air and atmosphere are old.
Here, though its inhabitants draw breathno more, History is alive and palpable,
shadowed and hushed. A world withina world. The silence of tens

(01:38):
of thousands of souls speaks volumes tothose who pause and pay attention. Yet
within this hallowed hidden haven, notevery soul is said to rest in peace.
Strange phantoms, black magic, anomalousmists, and a spade of vampire
hysteria have seemingly played this otherwise sublimenecropolis for ages, prompting people to ask,

(02:07):
is this a beautiful parcel of perfectland for the dead or an area
of ominous oddness where the dead aren'tquite as quiet as we think? Yet
neath the universal sky, bright childrenhere too, run and sing, calm,
verter waxes, green and high inGraveside roses. Smell of spring in

(02:32):
Highgate Cemetery by William Allingham. We'revisiting Highgate Cemetery on this episode of Blurry
Photo. Hey everyone, welcome toBlurry Photos and a very late Blurry Photober.

(03:29):
I'm your host, David Flora.I've got a good one here for
you, all about England's gorgeous Gothicgift to us, all Highgate Cemetery.
I had the absolute fortune to visitthe cemetery last December, and I can
tell you right now, if youhave the chance, go see it for
yourself. If you like this show, I would bet money you'd like Highgate

(03:51):
Cemetery. It's probably what you picturewhen you hear old Victorian cemetery, a
true mossy monument and charming over growthkind of spot, and like any good
imagined Victorian boneyard, it has itsshare of ghost stories, particularly involving a
supposed vampire and those that wish todestroy it. In this episode, I'll

(04:15):
go over the history of the cemeteryfrom inception to modern day, some notable
features and inhabitants, and will discussthe many tales and experiences people have claimed
to have had there over the years. Now I was lucky enough to take
a guided tour of the cemetery andeven luckier to have gotten John wait as

(04:36):
my guide, and that luck hascontinued as I asked John to join me
to discuss Highgates Cemetery on this episodeand he agreed. John Waite is an
award winning British radio and television presenterworking for the BBC. He's hosted such
shows as You and Yours Face,The Facts and Pick of the Week,

(04:57):
as well as adding his voice talentsto The I Economist's weekly podcast. He
volunteers as a guide at Highgate Cemetery, which is where I met him and
shared his exuberance of this special placein the North suburb of London. How
long have you been given tours atHighgate? I suppose I've been giving tours
now for the past, say thirteenyears. But I've been associated with the

(05:23):
cemetery since i first went there,and that's fifty years ago. I was
a young reporter. I was atrainee reporter for the BBC and then most
prestigious radio program is called the TodayProgram. It's still running. And I
was sent there fifty years ago asa trainee because Britain's most famous cemetery,

(05:45):
which had been closed for half acentury, Highgate Cemetery was reopening for the
first time, so it was quitea big story. I was sent along
as a trainee to cover it andI was captivated by the place. So
I've been going back there for halfa century. I've been taking people around
there for thirteen years. John'll bepopping in here and there as we learn

(06:08):
all about Highgate and its mysteries,and I'm excited to share his knowledge with
you. And that knowledge goes allthe way back to the early nineteenth century,
when Highgate was but a growing villagearound a toll house that's set upon
Highgate Hill, on one of themain northerly roads out of London Town.

(06:32):
While certainly not the oldest spot inthe country, Highgate Cemetery can claim a
respectable pedigree of being almost two centuriesold. The year was eighteen thirty two
when Parliament passed an act that encouragedestablishment of private cemeteries outside of central London,
and seven short years later Highgate Hillwas targeted as a spot for just

(06:55):
such a cemetery. There was avery good reason for this, as John
points out, well, what happenedwas something called the Industrial Revolution. Up
until that point in the history ofthe world, certainly in the history of
the Western world, in America,just as in my own country in the
United Kingdom, people lived at home, and they lived off the land,

(07:17):
and they grew what they needed,and nobody moved very much. And therefore
towns and cities weren't very big.And then the Industrial Revolution, which started
here in Britain, you know,with industrial processes and factories and jobs,
brought people literally in their millions,into the cities and into London in particular,

(07:42):
which grew in seventy years, David. It grew from the biggest city
in the world of about seventy thousandpeople into two and a half million.
And so one of the things thatthat means is this relatively small city ran
out of grave space and you couldonly be buried. In those days,

(08:05):
cremation was against the law in Britain. It wouldn't be legal for one hundred
years in the nineteen thirties. Sosomebody had to do something about grave space.
And an entrepreneur called Stephen gear Hesaid, I'll build some private cemeteries.
This is in the teeth of oppositionfrom the churches who thought you shouldn't

(08:26):
be making profits from the dead.So he built these rather opulent circle they
called the Magnificent Seven. Now,I know you Americans hijack that phrase for
a Cowboys film, but in fact, the original Magnificent seven, if you
go and look back in your historybooks, was what the press dubbed.

(08:48):
These seven pretty big private cemeteries ina big ring around London, way outside
of London in those days, fouror five miles outside. And high Gate
was his baby. He was incharge of all seven. He was behind
all seven, but he was basedat Highgate and he had big plans for
Highgate, and it was the mostspectacular of them all. A city of

(09:11):
the dead. He intended to builda necropolis, a city of the dead,
with obviously carriageways and walkway sidewalks andbuildings, and this was the most
sensational aspect. Buildings, of course, for the city of the dead wouldn't
be shops or offices like a normalcity. The dead would have no need

(09:31):
of those. It was some funerarybuildings, an Egyptian avenue of crypts,
a Greek circle of crypts, andthe first Roman catacombs to be built in
Britain. Even traveling just a fewmiles outside the city was like being in
a whole different world. At thetime, woods and farmlands sprawled among the

(09:54):
gentle hills north of the city,and the spot mister Geary chose for his
pet prize was Highgate Hill in thevillage of Highgate, a spot that was
traditionally a hunting estate for the Bishopof London, complete with a deer proof
hedge and a tall gate to getin and out. It was also right
next to an old trade route knownas Swain's Lane. A swain is another

(10:18):
word for a shepherd, and thenarrow road came to be known as Swain's
Lane due to its importance in providinga route from the farms of the area
down to Spittlefield's Market in the city, where pig farmers would take their stock.
At the time, the land belongedto a nobleman, one time Sheriff
of London, Mayor of London andseveral time MP Sir William Ashurst. Well,

(10:41):
it actually belonged to a local noblemanwhose name I think I always forget
his name. Certain names you couldnever get near Nodle, and this is
one of these. I think hisname was Slashes. But he had quite
a big sort of country home thereand it was all grazing land. He
had sheep and a few catalytes,and he was planning on moving anyway.

(11:03):
And so when the company approached him, could they buy these initially seventeen acres
of his And they offered him avery good price. He agreed, And
the idea was that it was fouror five miles from the center of London,
on the highest point north of London, you know, deep in the

(11:24):
countryside, good fresh air, lovelyviews over London. But you weren't,
you know, you weren't too closeto London, which was a very dangerous
place to be close too, becausethere were too many people living there with
no proper s annotation or sewers oranything. So there was a lot of
awful things collar and knocking around inthe air. So that's why it was

(11:48):
chosen to be so far outside ofLondon. It was just safer to build
it there being a private cemetery andin a desirable spot. The cemetery was
not open to just any old tosser. Yes, it was no doubt about
it. It was very exclusive.I don't know how much. When I
give you the figures in British poundsit will mean to your sistance, But

(12:13):
there's sort of the cheapest, thevery cheapest bargain basement interment would have been
forty pounds. Some people spent alot more than that. I probably showed
you when I showed you around David. The mausoleum dedicated to a little girl
called Aida Beer. Her dad,her father spent eleven million pounds on that.

(12:37):
But so you had to have moneyto be buried there. It was
really quite an exclusive affair. Yes, you're right. The third of the
Magnificent Seven to open. It hadroom for thirty thousand graves for those with
the cash to buy one, thoughit seems one's pocketbook wasn't a deterrent in
visiting the lovely new Necropolis, andeighteen forty work called Cemetery Interment by A.

(13:03):
George Collison gives us a personal accountof how some people didn't even need
a grave to enjoy the location.One is so much accustomed to associate ideas
of pleasure and holiday making with Highgateand its beautiful vicinity, that a cemetery
seems almost the last place we shouldthink of meeting with there, And so
little is the feeling subdued by thegeneral associations of the place that the author

(13:26):
has seen parties of pleasure, partakingof their slight refreshments in rural language called
picnic within the consecrated area. Thecemetery on Highgate Hill provided wonderful views of
London miles down below, though somewould say as opulent Mausoleum. After Mausoleum
was erected, those views became moreand more scarce. But it was the

(13:50):
Victorian age where showing off was expectedeven after death. Oh no, I
think, to be honest, itwas no way of demonstrating how successful you
were. I mean, the Victorianera made a number of people extremely rich,
indeed, and rich people you knowquite like to show you know how

(14:13):
successful they've been. So with misterwith mister Beer, his little daughter Ada,
as I say, they lived inthe center of London. She breathed
the air of London, and likeso many children and older folk, she
died she was eight. So hehad all the money in the world.
He reckoned. He was the richestman in Victorian England. And I think

(14:35):
he was telling the truth. He'dsaid, I'm the richest man outside of
royalty. I mean that's of anotherorder. But you know, the royals
inherit money and they pass it on. But for a self made man,
he reckoned. He was the richestin Victorian England, which means he was
very rich because a lot of moneyknocking around. Britain was the center of

(14:56):
the industrial Revolution. So he importedCarrara marble, which from the quarry in
Italy that Michaelangelo used. He usedit for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Mister
Beer used it for the floor ofhis mausoleum for his daughter. I think

(15:16):
I must have urged you to lookat the ceiling when you were when you
were there, David. And ifthe ceiling is glittering, for once,
all that glitters, all that glistensis gold, it's gold leaf. And
if it's not glistening but gleaming jewllike for once, there's semi precious stones.
That is where eleven million pounds willgo on a mausoleum. And did

(15:41):
and I remember you pointing out someof the some of the tunes that had
bellmoral marble. You remember my tour. I'm very impressed. Yeah, the
most expensive stone probably in the worldtime, but he possibly even more expensive

(16:02):
than gold, was called balmarl pinkgranite. And I think if you're if
you you're British extraction already, you'llbe you're probably beginning to understand why because
of that word Balmarl. For yourlisteners, many of whom will perhaps have
never heard of the place. QueenVictoria, who's you know, the queen

(16:26):
in the in the days we're talkingof two hundred years ago, she had
discovered with her husband Prince Albert Scotland, British monarchs didn't particularly go to Scotland
or to Wales or to you know, the outer realms of the Kingdom.
But she discovered Scotland and fell inlove with it and bought and built a

(16:47):
palace in Scotland where they went everyyear for a six week holiday, where
the current royal family go every year, the bow Moral Estate in in Ayrshire,
and it's really beautiful, very remote, and she loved it very much.
In the grounds of this royal estatewas a quarry and this quarry,

(17:11):
mind a particular kind of stone,This Balmral pink granite is so apparently geologically
quite unique. Pink granite, isn'tthat rare, but this is the density
of some of the black basalt orwhatever it is. I'm not a geologist,
but you can if you know yourstone, you can tell your bal

(17:37):
Moral pink granite. Well. Ofcourse, anything to do with the queen
in those days she was a superstar. She was the best known figure in
the world because British Empire ran athird of the world. She was on
all the coins, the all thecurrency, all the stamps, so anything
to do with her, you know, she was a superstar. So here's

(18:00):
this stuff that's mined in her quarriedin her garden, which was fine until
one day again reading the Air ofLondon. Her own husband dies, Prince
Albert, and she goes to balmarltheir favorite home, and goes really a
bit bonkers. She goes a bitmad, and she stays up there in

(18:22):
mourning for twenty years. So itmeans all this stuff, all this stone
that used to be quarried in herback garden, obviously they can't do that
with her in residence. So theprice of the stone goes through the roof.
And as you rightly recall, wehave one or two people in Highgate

(18:44):
who had their family crypts made outof the stone, basically boasting showing this
is the most precious and elusive,rare stone in the world. But we
can get hold of it, andwe have in a mere fourteen years.
The cemetery was home to more thanten thousand bodies, and a year later,

(19:06):
in eighteen fifty four, nineteen acreswere purchased to supplement the quickly filling
necropolis. This parcel of the landwas located just across Swain's Lane and became
known as the East Side, whilethe original was called the West. The
original cemetery built this City of theDead built in finished in eighteen thirty nine

(19:26):
started in eighteen thirty six completely landscaped. It was so popular that within about
ten years it was full, andso they just bought the field across the
road as it were Swain's Lane,the lane that runs by the original cemetery.
They just bought the big field thereand started an overspilled cemetery. That's

(19:52):
why there was two halves. Thesecond half was not landscape, was not
particularly special architect truly or in anyway. People just happy to be buried
at Highgate. It was by thisstage it very quickly became the most popular
and the most prestigious place to beburied in Victorian Britain. So people were

(20:14):
just happy to say they were atHighgate. Though still away from the urban
miasma of the city, with noshortage of customers in sight, the cemetery
began to have trouble of its own. Writing in defense of having fresh water
sources in London, Barrister Edward ThomasWakefield observed in eighteen fifty nine that some

(20:37):
of London's drinking water received quote thedrainage of Highgate Cemetery, which percolates the
soil on the London side of thecemetery and flows towards the metropolis end quote,
which caused carbonation of the water andobviously posed a danger. Punctuating the
point by highlighting quote the hideous realityof the survivors of each generation immediately drinking

(21:00):
in solution the mortal remains of theirpredecessors. End goodness. I guess pouring
one out for the homies wasn't thatwasteful after all? Sounds like you'd get
it back eventually. And an articlein an eighteen sixty one edition of The
Ladies Companion spoke to the effect somany graves had on the area of Highgate.

(21:26):
I scarcely like to speak, forwho desires to speak ill of that
which they have once well loved?And yet on most warm days the exhalations
from the Gratings and Swain's Lane havemade us real with faintness. And for
all the wealth of flowers and theirperfume, the digging of a grave makes
itself evident from one end of awalk to the other. So saturated is

(21:48):
the soil with the malaria of decay. It's a wonder so many picnic ers
took their tea amidst such conditions.Sounds like the list of dead at Highgate
included their sense of smell. Buthey, it speaks to the beauty of
the place that people wanted to bearound despite the unsavory atmosphere. I just

(22:14):
hope they got their tea water fromsomewhere on top of the hill. In
all honesty, the beauty of theplace could have overcome any foulness, and
in a way that was by design. The original concept though, that this
Stephen Geary had done. When youwent to visit, he landscaped it.
He said, so that when youvisited to see your loved ones, or

(22:40):
to see them committed interred, youyourself would go as they were going on
a journey into the unknown, andyou would as you went around and explored
and discovered the place you would cometo know. You'd come to sense more
clearly, this is his phrase,invisible beyond. I say this to your

(23:04):
listeners because they'll know who I mean. Some of my British people when I
take them around, don't know whenI'd call him the Pt Barnum of burials.
He was a showman. It wasall about drama and theater and spectacle
and it was a big gamble David, because the British were much more conservative
much more, you know, smallscale, respectful, and you know,

(23:27):
especially when he came to death,and here he was with these big structures,
this Egyptian avenue, or in thesevivid colors fresh egg blue and egg
yolk yellow, and the Roman catacombsshelves, hundreds and hundreds of bodies on
shelves on shelves. That's not veryrespectful, and so on. It was

(23:48):
a big gamble. People could havegone, oh no, this is vulgar,
and this is foreign, this isalien and not British. But they
didn't. They loved it. Theylapped it up, and so much so,
as I say, he had tobuild an extension within about ten years.

(24:15):
The wanna be just fineing the cemetery, I wanna stand. I want
to lend anywhere around. Don't wantto wait till it's too lay and I
am seas under. The wanna beiregious money the cementary. You lose your

(24:41):
health of any wealthy certainty. Ysee, I'm wanting Biggie with a big
Mormon being on Morty City. Iwanna die. As John said earlier,
the East Side wasn't designed to bea city of the dead like the original
West Side was Geary's go was tomake the living feel as though they were

(25:02):
experiencing a journey into the unknown,as their loved ones possibly had. Well,
what I probably did with you,what I normally do with my tours,
is we meet in the chapel wherepeople would have done to send off
their loved ones with the final service. Then you come outside and look across
the courtyard and there's a flight ofsteps. Now you can't they've been designed

(25:26):
and built so you can't see thetop. Because this is where your journey
to the unknown begins. You walkup those steps and then you find,
as if you remember David Serpentine paths, no straight paths, No straight paths,
because if there were straight you'd seethe end. No level paths,
level paths, you'd see the end. So they this is so different to

(25:49):
anything that the Brits had experience upto this point. And the idea was
it draws you in. You haveto explore. You don't know quite where
you're going. These paths are goingto delve and dip and wend and weave,
and the whole thing was an experience, and this two hundred years ago

(26:11):
was just sensational, you know,to the British people, and you remember,
so you know there are no photographs. It's two hundred years ago,
so people can't have seen pictures ofan acropolis. I mean there are cities
of the dead in Greece and inRome, but they can't have seen pictures.
They didn't travel to Greece or Rometwo hundred years ago, so this

(26:33):
was a closed book. It wastruly therefore reve latery when people went,
and they absolutely loved it. Sincefolks couldn't necessarily travel to these exotic locales,
the design of Highgate brought it tothem. Classical as well as Egyptian
design was incorporated into different areas ofthe cemetery, including a dark tunnel of

(26:59):
tombs called Egyptian Avenue and the Circleof Lebanon, which is a circle of
tombs surrounded by a ring of tombsand so named for an old Cedar of
Lebanon tree which stood atop the innercircle of tombs and had existed there since
William Ashurst own the property. Unfortunately, fungus rigged havoc on it, and

(27:21):
the hard decision to cut it downwas made in twenty nineteen just up from
there. Since the Roman style catacombsbuilt into the slope of the hill and
filled with coffin compartments along the wallsof the dark vaults where no artificial lighting
is allowed. I mean I sayto people, look, we could put
a light in here. Of course, we could put strip lighting, we

(27:41):
could have spotlight. We could,but then it isn't Victorian. You know,
this is how the Victoria's experienced it. This is how they liked to
experience it. They came to talkto their loved ones. They came to
speak to these coffins. All thecoffins, as you remember, David do,
they all face out, all theirheads are near you, so you
can literally you can touch them,you can lean into them. But they're

(28:04):
in Victorian times. They would havecome to talk to them every week,
probably every day in some cases.I mean, death was so much more
part of life, and they didn'twant bright lights. And you know,
this was a sort of reverent actthat they came along. And we've kept
it that way. And I thinkthe atmosphere is a million times better because

(28:26):
because you can't see everything very clearly, you do get this tremendous atmosphere.
God, I don't bitary. Thereare not many better words for Highgate Cemetery

(28:52):
than that one atmosphere. The designelements give it such uniqueness on their own,
but there are a couple more elementsthat really set it off, including
the wonderment in awe of the guestlist. Well, the thing with with
Highgate is the movers and shakers,as we say, you know of the
Victorian era there, but you highthat's what we may yeah, High,

(29:18):
but they were the ones who whodid stuff and contributed to iconic sort of
things that we know today, butwe don't know their names. Necessary So
I showed you the MEAs family.I'm sure their memorial, the Meer's family,
Britain's longest running family business, youknow, over seven hundred years.
When we talk about long, Davidas you know, we mean long.

(29:42):
I think I probably made the joketo you. I'm going to make it
a game that what's the difference,you know between the Brits and the Americans.
Well, the Brits think one hundredmiles is a long way. I
mean we do if we're going onehundred miles, you know, we kit
out, we take food, wetake supply to go one hundred miles.
But the Americans get this, thinkone hundred years is a long time.

(30:04):
We don't get out of bed forone hundred years. So our longest running
family business seven hundred years. Theymake bells, big bells, special bells.
You have one of theirs. Youwould give it in Philadelphia. It's
called the Liberty Bell. And themost famous bell, we would say,

(30:26):
the Brits would say in the worldis Big Ben. And they made The
Miers family made Big Ben. Soand then I think I showed you the
guy who designed Buckingham Palace, andso Edward Blow. These people's names aren't
known, but what they did isdefinitely known. Our most famous residents know
all of your listeners will know,and that is Karl Marx, who was

(30:51):
an emigrants. He'd been chased outof Germany. He had all these curious
ideas about how the world should beone in communism. And also he'd been
chased out of Germany came to Britainas poor as a church mouse because he
was writing all these books and peoplethought he was crackers. And so he

(31:11):
died in pretty much obscurity in London. And then, of course he died,
but his fame grew, and soeverybody's said of Marx now and he
is now the most visited grave inthe in the cemetery. When I first
started their David ten thirteen years ago, you'd have thousands of Russians come to

(31:34):
visit him. You know. Nowcommunism's over in Russia. Now we have
thousands of Chinese visiting the grave ofKarl Marx. And that is in the
east, that's in the East section. I was particularly excited to see Michael
Faraday there. Oh yes, yes, well again people, I don't suppose

(32:01):
most people would have heard of him. If you know anything about the world
of electricity, you will have heardof him. In fact, there's a
unit of electricity called a Faraday.I was honored and privileged. One day.
I love who turns up on mytours. On our tours, anybody
is not just mine, but goingquite often they're experts in their particular field

(32:24):
who come to see somebody, literallysomebody in particular. And one day on
one of my tours was a guyI think he was from Princeton, but
anyway, he was in charge ofthe Albert Einstein Laboratory and offices, which

(32:44):
I think is in Princeton. Andhe said, we kept Albert Einstein's office
exactly as it was on the daythat he died. And the office has
one picture on the wall. Thewall's covered as you might imagine in formulae
and all that you know, Butthere's one picture on the wall. And
the picture is not of his wifeor of his children, or it's of

(33:06):
Michael Faraday, his great hero.To Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday was without
doubt the greatest scientists who ever lived. And Albert Einstein said he was the
father of the twentieth century. Whathe meant by that was in the nineteenth
century when this Highgate Cemetery opened.In the Victorian era two hundred years ago,
you had steam, and you hadgas for lighting you. Most of

(33:31):
power was provided by horses horsepower.What you didn't have is electricity. This
is the twentieth century phenomenon. TheVictorians knew about electricity. They could see
it every time there was a lightningstrike. They could see the power of
this thing. But they couldn't captureit, couldn't store it. There's no
kind of motor to deliver electrical power. And mister Faraday, Michael Faraday,

(33:58):
this amazing son artists had a handin delivering all of those things. So
That's why Albert Einstein called him thefather of the twentieth century, the century
of electricity. Fifteen acres were originallydesigned to hold graves for the members of
the Church of England, with twomore for dissenters or those who separated from

(34:22):
the church. Those of other faithsor no faith at all were buried against
one of the outer walls on thewest side, which is where you can
find Faraday's headstone. Other notable residentsof the East and west sides include author
Douglas Adams, musician George Michael,author George Eliot aka Mary Ann Evans,

(34:45):
the wife, sister and parents ofCharles Dickens, and he's buried in Westminster
Abbey. Henry Gray, author ofGrey's Anatomy, actor Ian Holm, who
played Bilbo Baggins and The Lord ofRings films, actor Bob hast Skins who
played Mario in that nineties Mario movie, as well as Smee and Hook,
and a host of other famous andinfamous folk. The third component to Highgates

(35:12):
atmosphere, in my opinion, ishow it looks now. Originally, as
we said, it was clean cutand maintained, but the twentieth century saw
it fall into a state of disrepair. Well, it was so popular,
as I say, that it wasnearly full within about a decade, and
so they opened this extension. Butthen came along the Great War, the

(35:37):
First World War, which for USwas nineteen fourteen nineteen eighteen, for you,
for the Americans nineteen seventeen to nineteeneighteen. But when the Americans entered
the war, it soon came toan end because you know, they tipped
the whole balance. But what itmeant was it was the Great War,
and everyone in Europe, certainly ofthe belligerents, would have known someone who

(36:02):
died. I mean in my family, you know, I had family members
who died and they were usually justleft but buried where they fell on the
battlefields of Europe, France or Belgium, and they had no memorial and if

(36:22):
they did, it was a cheapwhite cross in a sort of military cemetery
if they were lucky and so andso that's one aspect of the decline of
Highgate, because there was a moralrevulsion. Let's put it that way.
People back home in Britain, youknow, their loved ones had given their

(36:45):
lives in battle, maybe their husband, maybe their brother, maybe their son,
maybe their fiance, their best friend, maybe all of them. And
where were they They had no grave, and here were people like mister Beer
spending eleven million pounds on a deaddaughter. So there was a sort of
revulsion. And then on a practicallevel, there were one hundred gardeners at

(37:09):
Highgate. There were one hundred orI think fifty sorry monumental masons. There
were hundreds of working class men whokept the thing going, and they were
all called up and many did notcome back. So the combination of all
these things meant that from about nineteeneighty nineteen the beautifully kept Highgates started to

(37:32):
fall into decline. And the moreit fell into decline, the more people
came along and looked at it.Didn't like what they saw quite so much
because it was getting a bit tatty, and so they went elsewhere, and
so of course that was even lessincome, so even more decline, And
so in about nineteen twenty two wasit twenty four, a few years after

(37:53):
the end of the Great War,they kind of locked up the gates,
hoped for better things, hope fora return of their fortunes, which never
came. And so fifty years Laterin the nineteen seventies, a charity opted
to take over the cemetery and startdoing it up, and that's the situation

(38:16):
we have today. That charity wasthe Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, an
all volunteer organization which still manages andpreserves the cemetery to this day. The
Friends decided to repair and restore HighgateCemetery, which they nicknamed Victorian Valhalla.
But there were challenges they faced,namely plant growth. Oh, he gave

(38:40):
it an awful lot of atmosphere.Yeah, I should point out there was
not a single tree in the originalHighgate Cemetery. It was a cemetery park.
It had these hundred full time gardeners. All they did was plant and
replant flowers and shrubs. The ideawas, you see David too, that
when punters came along, when people, prospective clients came along, or people

(39:04):
whose loved ones were there, theycame to this well heaven on earth really,
So there was a regulation height ofgrass. There were peacocks strolling the
grounds. You were deep in thecountryside miles from London. In the highest
point north of London you could lookdown in there in the distance would be
London, a hump of smogan diseaseand infection. But you you were in
the you know, the clean airof the County of Middlesex. So it

(39:29):
was the idea is when you camealong, you didn't feel sorry for your
departed loved ones. You felt almostenvious because they were in such beautiful,
exquisite, serene surroundings. So therewasn't a single tree to get in the
way of the views or whatever.But when I went, as I say,

(39:51):
on the opening day in nineteen seventysix I think it was, and
we were let in or officially thegates were open for the first time in
half a century. There were twoand a half million trees, far too
many. Yeah, oh yes,when you visited, David, you might
have thought, there's a lot oftrees. That's ninety thousand. That's only

(40:13):
ninety thousand e left. We couldn'thave moved because of the trees. So
what happened was over the years,so many of the trees were removed,
but they're all self seeded. Somewere protected species, very rare and protected,
so they have to stay, andthe others, if they were removed,
they would compromise a grave. Insome way, and that's how we've

(40:34):
done the balancing act between no treesand some trees. And we love the
trees, we don't want them togo. As you say, they add
such atmosphere, but there were justtoo many of them, So ninety thousand
is enough. Two and a halfmillion which was too many. The overgrowth
seemed to add to the beauty ofthe place, and instead of clearcutting everything

(41:00):
sought to preserve the natural additions thatweren't actively destroying structures in what they termed
managed neglect, a decision that enhancedthe cemetery's character. Oh totally, I
totally agree with you. I thinkit's even more beautiful today in its as
it were decrepitude than it would havebeen. I think it would have been

(41:23):
beautiful. And of course we don'thave any photos because they haven't been invented,
but we do have a few sketchesfrom the eighteen thirties which do show
it to be a lovely place.And you see the ladies, you know,
in their crinolines and their parasols takingthe air. But like you,
you know, I don't want togo back to those days. I love

(41:43):
the way it is now. Thenature and nurture, you know, the
man made stuff. And just toshow how special it is. You may
not know. We have this systemin Britain of sort of listing our most
important places so that the very mostimportant can be protected and not spoiled and
not developed and built on. Ican't remember how many there are that.

(42:08):
They're called Grade one. I mean, so Grade two is very important,
and you know, lots of importantbuildings would be grade too, but the
most precious, a few thousand ofthem. They're called Grade one, and
they really are. You can't doanything with them. Nothing must ever happen
to them. They're obvious if you'veever been to Britain. The Saint Paul's

(42:28):
Cathedral, they're Westminster Abbey, They'rethe Tower of London, They're Buckingham Palace,
they are Highgate Cemetery. We areGrade one listed. That's how precious
and special it is. We'll takea quick break and when we come back,
ghosts, magic and a vampire addto Highgates mystique. See on the

(42:49):
other side. Highgate and Swain's Lanewere never strangers to violence, highwaymen and

(43:14):
death. In fact, writings fromthe early nineteenth century suggested the denizens of
Highgate Village were somewhat inclined to beingoverly excitable, attributing otherwise normal happenings to
the paranormal, and believing a boogeymanlurked in the shadows of Swain's Lane,
waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims.Perhaps the allegations of hysteria are deserved,

(43:37):
perhaps not, But as time hasmarched on, accounts of paranormal activity have
continued. Familiar types of phenomena havebeen reported, such as failure of electronic
devices. Cell Phones, cameras,lights, batteries have all been subject to
an apparent unnatural agency, causing fullycharged electronics to die on the spot,

(44:01):
phone signals to be lost unexpectedly,and camera buttons failing to perform their function.
Electronic troubles don't seem to be anepidemic, fortunately, as photos and
recordings have been made regularly since it'sreopening, and no doubt a good while
before. Personally, I took likea thousand pictures there and I had no

(44:24):
trouble at all. Perhaps the mostfamous EVP or electronic voice phenomena was captured
in nineteen sixty five by indie recordproducer Joe Meek. Meek had been visiting
the cemetery at night to record soundthere and claimed to have captured a disembodied
female voice saying obscure contorted words.I'll play that right now. Don't blame

(44:51):
me, god now, but thosetime, I'm just kidding. I couldn't
find the EVP to play you.Sorry now. There have been no shortage
of examples of this podcast's namesake aswell, and many carry the classic story
of the photographer not seeing anything outof the ordinary, but when the photo
was developed or looked at later,an odd shape or mist would be present

(45:14):
in it. However, it's thereports of spectral entities that garner the most
excitement and attention for paranormal enthusiasts.Several different encounters have been reported over the
years, with a small variety ofalleged phenomena, and these accounts date back
to the nineteenth century. One storyfrom the nineteen seventies details a ghostly figure

(45:37):
unique to other reports. At leasttwo folklorists wrote about an old woman shrouded
in white who stands forlornly at theentrance to the east side of the cemetery,
staring absently out the gate. Whenapproached, she said to disappear quote,
only to reappear a short distance away, adopted the same listless gaze end

(46:01):
quote, and though not explicitly connectedby anyone reporting them, there is another
old woman said to have been seenin the cemetery, and speculation has been
raised of whether or not they arethe same entity. The second apparition of
an older woman dashes through the headstones, almost as if she's frantically searching for

(46:22):
something or someone. Author and parapsychologistPeter Underwood wrote about this figure in his
nineteen seventy three book Haunted London,where he speculated it to be an quote
old and mad woman whose children wereburied here after she had murdered them,
and now her sad and restless spiritseeks the graves of those she harmed but

(46:45):
really loved end quote. There isno evidence presented to lead anyone to this
conclusion, but some sleuths have dugup clues that could support the idea had
there been much more incriminating information.A Morning Chronicle article from eighteen forty five
told of some boys playing around atree near the southern part of the East

(47:07):
Cemetery when one of them found ablack bundle inside the trunk. Opening it,
they discovered the somewhat decomposed body ofa child with evidence of violence apparent.
And in eighteen sixty five a trialwas held when a Robert Pringle,
a tailor in Highgate Village, founda parcel tied up and upon opening,

(47:30):
discovered the horribly mutilated remains of ababy. The trial mentioned witnesses to two
women fighting over a child near thecemetery, but turned up new culprits.
Coupled with the similar discovery in thetree on Highgate Hill, speculation has been
tossed around that perhaps the Specter ofthe old Woman is connected, though at

(47:52):
this point it would probably be impossibleto confirm. By the middle of the
twentieth century, Highgate Cemetery had becomea popular place to gather for magical rituals.
Practitioners of black and white magic sawit as a perfect spot to tap
into other worldly powers, owing toits atmosphere and architecture. Seances and summoning

(48:15):
ceremonies were held in the dead ofnight, and symbols were drawn in and
among the tombs and catacombs. Storiesof summonings and dark magic rituals abounded,
with people claiming to have summoned maliciousentities in communed with evil forces, which
only added to the cemetery's mystique.Whether or not this time period spawned future

(48:37):
reports of strangeness is debatable, butit wasn't the first time someone had supposedly
encountered something supernatural there. The NewZealand Herald published a letter from an anonymous
source in eighteen sixty eight that describeda harrowing encounter one winter while walking on
nearby Hampstead Lane, just northwest ofthe cemetery. In the center of the

(49:08):
road was a man, tall,thin, cadaverous, mysterious, noiseless.
The first thought which rushed into myhead when I beheld my spectral friend was
is he human or superhuman? Ifhuman, then most probably a grotter.
If superhuman, most decidedly one ofbad taste to be abroad as a matter

(49:32):
of liking such a night as this, I distinctly remember the great desire my
hair had to lift my hat offmy head, and a cold clammy perspiration
beat it on my forehead. Instinctively, I found myself walking on again,
sharply hoping that my companion would bydint of exertion on my part, soon

(49:54):
be left behind. As I quickenedmy pace, my spectral friend quickly into
his. Also, my friend's footstepswere noiseless. He seemed to glide along
like one of the characters, andskelts shilling toy theaters, still keeping in
the road, but all the whileabreast of me, I was confounded.

(50:15):
A feeling of fear came over me. I sickened at heart. I mechanically
walked quicker, he glided quicker,still, breast abreast. I burst into
a trot. He glided into atrot too, still, noiseless, wretched
man as he was. I involuntarilystarted off downhill as fast as my legs
could take me. To my horror, he glided too faster than ever,

(50:39):
still breast abreast, still, Istruggled on on on. Dim pictures of
horses danced past me, now up, now down the hedges past my distorted
vision. Railings shot up and vanishedlike streaks of white paint. I suppose
I must have ran a good mile, and it somewhat recovered my reasoning faculties

(51:01):
when I felt a desire to stopsuch an amount of physical exertion, feeling
convinced that I must have got faraway from my antagonist. So easing myself
into a slow emotion, I graduallycame to a dead standstill and wiped the
perspiration off my face. I thoughtI would just turn round and scan the

(51:23):
distance which lay atwixt me and misterspecter. Horror upon horrors, agony upon
agony. There stood the wretch inthe road, tall, thin, cadaverous,
mysterious and noiseless, quite calm andcontemplative. Once again I found myself

(51:47):
pursuing my course at a rapid speed, my friend still continuing in concert.
If I lagged, he lagged.If I smartened my pace, he smartened
his. I walked, he walked. If I ran like a fiery meteor,
he ran like a fiery meteor.But yet his pace throughout was steady,

(52:07):
like the figures that pass in frontof the magic lantern, and his
footsteps were noiseless. I saw orfancied. I saw a light. With
frantic effort, I bounded towards it. I seized a garden gate. It
would not yield. I felt afigure glide up to me, and a
warm breath whispered in my ears theseominous words I hope you're not fatigued,

(52:30):
sir. It was my silent friend, my evening tormentor. I loathed him.
My blood boiled. I strove tospeak and failed. I strove again
and prevailed. Do you wish toinsult me? No, certainly not,
sir, said my tormentor. Ionly hoped you are not fatigued, sir.

(52:54):
Good night, so saying, hepolitely bowed and glowed, lighted noiselessly
away in the mist. In theearly fall of nineteen sixty nine, a
woman was walking her little dog downSwain's Lane twice a day ritual the two

(53:17):
performed, when suddenly the little pupbegan growling and raising a fuss at something.
Through the gate of the West Cemetery, the woman claimed to see a
tall, dark man floating without touchingthe ground. To her horror, it
started floating toward her, but suddenlydisappeared before reaching the gate. It was

(53:42):
around this period of time that thelocale saw a discernible uptick in alleged encounters
with phantasmal beings. One R.Dougherty wrote to the Hampstead and Highgate Express
the ham and High reporting on onesuch entity at the Cemetery in nineteen seventy.
There is, without a doubt aghost of when and whom he originated?

(54:05):
I do not know. Many talesare told, however, about a
tall man in a hat who walksacross Swain's Lane just disappears through a wall
into the cemetery. Local superstition alsohas it that the bells and the old
disused chapel inside the cemetery toll mysteriouslywhenever he walks. This figure would go

(54:27):
on to be described several more timesby several different people over the years.
November nineteen eighty five, a womanby the name of Janet Morril claims she
saw some kind of tall, shadowyfigure Vanish near the northernmost gate to the
West Cemetery. November nineteen ninety one, Declan Walsh described a similar sighting while
walking around six thirty am, sayinghe saw a tall man dressed in black

(54:53):
Victorian style of clothing, including acape and top hat. He walked directly
towards the gates. Gates were lockedand shot, but he walked straight through
them without altering his stride, nordid he make any sounds. I walked
past him on the other side andcould see no one else present. Two
thousand and four, month unspecified,Patsy Langley was on a tour of Highgate

(55:16):
when some other tourists remarked about seeinga tall man in a black cloak who
had disappeared near the north gate ofthe West Cemetery. They thought it had
been an actor hired just to spooktourists, but the guide at the time
assured them this was not the case. Patsy went on to author the book
The Highgate Vampire Casebook in two thousandand seven. August two thousand and five,

(55:42):
a man named Martin Trent was walkinghome one night down Swain's Lane when
he caught sight of a man nottoo far ahead of him. He recalled
it being a hot summer night,but the man was dressed in black clothing,
including a large overcoat and top hat. Though the man looked to be
early, his face was gaunt withhigh cheekbones. Wanting to avoid the figure

(56:07):
as much as possible, Trent crossedto the opposite side of the lane,
but just when he was passing it, I could swear I heard him say
to me, good evening to you, sir, in what sounded at first
like a strange accent, but whichI later thought just sounded old fashioned.
The other peculiarity about his greeting wasthat it didn't seem to come from his

(56:29):
direction as such, but rather seemedto be hissed right next to my ear,
which, given the ordinariness of thewords, still gave me a jolt.
I'm not even sure if the voicewas male or female. Now it
seemed to be oddly neutral as faras I can remember, though he had

(56:52):
trouble remembering much else. He wenton to say that after walking a little
farther down the lane, he feltcompelled to turn and look back. As
he did, he witnessed the figureglide through the closed gates of the East
Cemetery. Additional sightings of a strangefigure in black or sometimes of black,

(57:15):
could be connected, though they didn'treport a top hat. In nineteen sixty
five, an ex army officer bythe name of Brian Bourne was traveling down
Swing's Lane near the north gate whenhe noticed what appeared to be black treacle
flowing down and running over the wall. It touched the ground and actually flowed

(57:36):
like a big black pool of liquidinto the center of the path. About
six feet before me, there wasan icy coldness, which grew more intense
with the passing seconds. Literally anarctic cold with dusk falling full on the
perimeter wall. The path was inshadow, but there was a shadow discernible
within that shadow. The most horriblepart was, and I still have nightmares

(58:00):
about it, still wake up ina cold sweat. It reared up.
I'd estimated its height at seven oreight feet. I'm five feet eight inches
tall, and it towered over me. It was enormous. It was neither
solid nor transparent. My overall impressionwas that it was a black figure wearing

(58:20):
dark garments which flowed and stirred inthe wind. But there was no wind.
The edges of what it was wearingwere moving, no face where eyes
would have been if it were human. There were just two red pits,
red glows, and I was veryconscious that it was looking at me.
At that point I realized that Iwas up against an entity that was both

(58:44):
powerful and malignant. It was radiatingevil. That's the only way I could
describe it. This wasn't a ghost, it was an entity. Attempts have
been made to put a name tothis Victorian garbage gentleman, with mixed results.
One possible culprit that has been putforth is Henri Fuinley. In December

(59:07):
of eighteen fifty six, a cemetaryworker stumbled upon the body of mister Fuinley
near the site of the present dayEast Cemetery gate. The victim had taken
his own life by shotgun, andpolice found his name and some notes inside
his black clothing. The twenty yearold son of a dentist was buried in

(59:29):
the West Cemetery. An untimely death, the right period, clothing and the
right location have led some to believethis is the phantom that haunts the lane.
But another name has been put forthas well, that of William Blake.
No, not that William Blake.This one was around a good century

(59:51):
before the poet of the same name. This Blake lived in a cottage on
Swain's Lane, near the south endof the cemetery, and tried unsuccessfully to
purchase and run different establishments in thearea, including an orphanage, a school
houses, and a pub just northof the cemetery called the Flask. He
died while in a debtors prison,and the location of his grave is unknown.

(01:00:15):
Unhappy in life, some have speculatedthat his restless spirits still roams the
land he loved and tried to makework for him. I asked John,
if he was familiar at all withthe man and the hat, he'd fit
right in, wouldn't he. Ithink he may have been one of those

(01:00:37):
figures that knocked around in the latesixties early seventies with the Farrant Manchester Highgate
Vampire. But personally, and Iknow no more than that. They always

(01:00:58):
build fences around gardens, of course, to keep people out. High agreed
they always build all round a prisonbecause if they didn't, well, where
would they be With that? Thereis nothing amiss, But will you please
tell me this? Why will thewall round the grave yard when nobody wants

(01:01:22):
to go in? Why will thewall round the grave yard when nobody wants
to go out? It may bea beautiful haven of rist, but you
know that he'll be a permanent guest. So why will there around a greave
yard when nobody wants to go in? Here's the contortionist, belitted peete.

(01:01:47):
He tried his best to make boatsin meat here either drinker the harbor of
him he'd be with the smell,but he couldn't say when. Ah,
we'll take another quick break, andwhen we return we get a little vampiric
stay tuned will a blinking great slabon his chest, heads off, another

(01:02:16):
new member signed on, heads offat Wall around the Grave God, when
nobody wants to go in? Whythe lore out of the grave? God,
when nobody wants to go out ina nice wooden coat to mcguill'stand any

(01:02:36):
screen they make pretty certain you're sureduring me so WI no wall around the
lave yard when nobody wants to goin, that's on at dog, that's
all at no believe it or not. The dark figure in the hat is

(01:02:57):
not the most famous paranormal star ofHighgates Terry, despite its many supposed sightings.
It plays second fiddle to another entitythat is much less tangible, even
in ghostly terms, although some folkswould argue they're perhaps the same, being
as John just mentioned, the realpopularity of Highgate's paranormality came to fruition in

(01:03:22):
the seventies with a couple individuals theirexploits in the public atmosphere and pop culture
of the time. The Highgate Vampireis the most well known spook attached to
the cemetery, though its legend hasgotten some help from a famous feud,
famous actor, and famous escapades ofother people. This portion of Highgate's history

(01:03:45):
was made possible by occultist and authorDavid Farrant. After being approached by Joe
Meek and hearing Meek's supposed EVPs.Farrant founded the British Psychic and Occult Society
and explored Highgate to get to thebottom of the claims made by Meek and
others. One of these others toldFarrant about an experience where a tall,

(01:04:09):
dark gray specter had psychically drained himof energy and kept him hypnotically fixated until
it finally disappeared. Farrant had alsobeen told first hand of the experience the
Lady with the Little Dog had innineteen sixty nine, and on December twenty
first of that same year, hestruck out at eleven pm to investigate the

(01:04:30):
cemetery for himself. Lucky for him, the excursion was not in vain,
for while he was trying to makeout what lay beyond the bars of the
North Gate, he claimed to havespotted a seven foot tall, dark humanoid
figure that began to float towards him, stopping a mere three yards away.
Farrant described two faint points of lightthat he took for eyes on a featureless,

(01:04:56):
dark mass of a face, and, as he called it, a
psichic attack. This account is detailedin his wife, Della's twenty fourteen book
Haunted Highgate. David's account of theexperience was relayed in a letter to the
Ham and High on February sixth,nineteen seventy, and differed slightly, saying
the date was Christmas Eve and thathe had actually seen the entity three times

(01:05:19):
between the twenty fourth and the writingof the letter. His occult Society BPOs
conducted investigations at the cemetery, whichsome have said is where the two additional
sightings came from, but David graciouslyconveyed they were his sightings to protect the
members from ridicule. His popularity grew, and even the Ham and High staff

(01:05:44):
began going to him for opinions aboutother paranormal topics. It led to an
innocuous request printed in the paper withhis article, asking for additional reports of
the phantom figure from the public.Several accounts were submitted, including semi mentioned
earlier. An interest in the wholeaffair began to Swell and Highgate and beyond.

(01:06:05):
During this period, Farrant continued toexplore the overgrown grounds, claiming to
find evidence of Satanic worship and ritualsin tombs and catacombs described as what sounds
like the beer mausoleum. He claimedto have found and photographed an inverted pentagram
made from chalk or salt, alongwith what were deemed magical symbols to summon

(01:06:30):
quote unquote the old Kings of Hell. I mean, if there's more than
one king, isn't the title kindof meaningless? Anyway? When more than
a couple corpses of foxes were discovered, more or less ex sanguinated and with
no noticeable cause of death, thepaper ran headlines like why do the foxes
die? And does a wampier walkin Highgate? They ran it as a

(01:06:56):
joke, while letters about experiences camein the news thought it was a jolly
good time. The locals begged todiffer. A loose vampire was the most
logical conclusion drawn by the public,and Farrant was invited on a Thames TV
broadcast for an interview about it all. Farrant was careful to not mention the

(01:07:19):
word vampire, as he thought itwas a bridge too far for an explanation,
but another guest on the show absolutelylatched onto the term and idea and
poured petrol on a swelling fire ofa situation. That was Sean Manchester,
a self proclaimed skilled vampire hunter,exorcist, descendant of Lord Byron and bishop

(01:07:41):
of the Old Catholic Church that isan offshoot of Catholicism that did not believe
in the infallibility of the pope andalso holds more liberal views on social issues.
To him, the experiences were indicativeof a king vampire and that it
should be killed with a stake throughthe heart, de keptation and burning.

(01:08:01):
The remarks were heard throughout Highgate andbeyond, and on Friday, March thirteenth
of nineteen seventy, hundreds of peopleeager to slay the vampire, assaulted the
gates of Highgate Cemetery. Police triedto hold back the throng but proved ineffective.
A good deal of vandalism was perpetratedon the overgrown cemetery, but no

(01:08:24):
vampire was ever found. A fewmonths later, the century old corpse of
a woman was found staked, beheadedand burnt in the cemetery, which concerned
Farrant in regards to the violence committedto him. A malevolent entity needed to
be exercised from the location. Afew nights later, he and some other

(01:08:45):
occult society members snuck into the cemeteryto conduct a seance and possible banishment ritual.
They brought incense, chalk, salt, candles, charcoal, and a
piece of wood wrapped in white satincord, supposedly to mark out the circle
they needed to draw. After markingout a couple of circles and getting everything
nice and seancey, the ritual wasinterrupted by the coppers, who arrested Farrant

(01:09:11):
for the crime of vampire hunting.I guess the charges were dismissed by a
judge, but it wouldn't be thelast time he ran a foul of the
law, which I'll circle back tooshortly. In nineteen seventy three, all
Hills seemed to break loose. Farranand Manchester had developed a rather contentious relationship,
which resulted in rumors of a magician'sduel a top Parliament Hill in April

(01:09:36):
of that year. It never happened. Manchester later wrote in his nineteen eighty
five work the Highgate Vampire that hehad gotten into a part of the catacombs
in nineteen seventy looking for the vampire'scoffin, but had come up empty.
Then, around the time of Faran'sarrest, he had been led to a
vault in the cemetery by a youngpsychic assistant, and making his way inside

(01:09:58):
and prying the lid off the coffin. Therein, he claimed to glimpse the
vampire he sought. Present at thisunpleasant unboxing were some of his followers,
who persuaded him to not drive thestake he had at the ready through the
corpse's heart, as the law wasnot on their side in regards to messing
with human remains. Instead, theyperformed an exorcism ritual and left a crucifix

(01:10:21):
in some holy water inside, andsaid the cemetery officials bricked it up after
Farrant meanwhile became fixated on the police, as a friend of his had gotten
roughed up a bit by them.He sent them voodoo dolls and not very
kind messages, which made him atarget when police later found a headless corpse
in a car in his area,though someone else confessed to the prank.

(01:10:46):
Police found photos of vandalized graves inhis possession, and a judge sentenced them
to almost five years in prison.He served two and a half before being
let out for good behavior. Healways maintained that the voodoo dolls were his
doing, but the vandalism was fromSatanists. The feud with him and Manchester

(01:11:06):
continued, with more magicians, duelsbandied about but never fought in the late
seventies, and jabs thrown at eachother through print and media up until Farren's
death in twenty nineteen. Manchester hadan interesting encounter in nineteen eighty two,
which was detailed in his book.He claimed to have tracked down the vampire

(01:11:28):
in an old, abandoned house inLondon's crouch End. There he staked it
through the heart and burnt the body, but his psychic assistant became possessed by
the vampire, causing her to morphinto a giant spider. After a perilous
fight, he managed to stake itas well, releasing his assistant from the
possession. All according to Manchester,I was hesitant to ask John about the

(01:11:54):
whole ordeal, as it's a touchyand not fondly remembered chapter in high Cemetery's
history, as you can well imagine, but he graciously gave some things to
think about that weren't related to theFarent Manchester feud, but could have contributed
to the hysteria that sprang up inthe seventies. I suppose one of the

(01:12:16):
reasons that a charity upped and tookover the place in the nineteen seventies was
down to would you believe Dracula,Because in the nineteen sixties, you see
the company that operated, the originalcompany that operated the cemetery, though it

(01:12:39):
wasn't it wasn't a working cemetery.They weren't burying people there. They wanted
to make some money out of it, but without spending any money on it,
and so one of the things theydid was hire it out as a
film set, a giant outdoor filmset for a film company, a British
film company that some of your oldermembers may be able to recall called Hammer

(01:13:02):
Hammer Horror. Hamma only made horrorfilms, and what it did was it
took all those horror films that you'dmade, the Universal had made in the
thirties. Frankenstein, Dracula, theGhould as you know, all that kind
of stuff, the Mummy and remadethem all in the fifties and sixties in
color, and it made eleven Draculafilms at on location at Highgate. And

(01:13:28):
I think you'd agree, David,having been there, it's a wonderful location
for that kind of isn't it.Yeah, So Christopher Christopher Lee was there.
Christopher Lee's great breakout role was asDracular. I know he went on
to do other things Lord of theRings and all that, a few other
things, indeed, but he startedas a wonderful Dracula. And he was

(01:13:51):
seen one of my colleagues who's myage, late sixties, early seventies,
who was a child in those days, and they kids used to sort of
climb over the wall and you know, play in in the cemetery like a
big adventure playground, and he cameacross Dracula one day, you know,
with the full fig in the inthe in the cloak, with the with

(01:14:15):
the with the with the with thefangs, the blood and it. Of
course it was Christopher Lee in costumefilming a scene, but to this little
boy, it was Dracula. Andso the word got out that Dracula lived
in this deserted cemetery. And then, as you know, two guys came

(01:14:40):
along called Sean Manchester and David Farrant, and they decided to perpetrate a quite
brilliant hoax about the Highgate Vampire.Well for whatever reason, and personally,
I think most of us believe itwas because a book was in the offing
and they wanted and I think theyjust I think they just wanted to see,

(01:15:02):
you know, if they could hoodwiga sizeable population of North London.
You know, the Highgate is oneof the most expensive places to live in
London because it's still a village,which in a big city, you know,
has a village atmosphere, Hampstead andHighgate and these and there are some
very very successful people there, veryrich people, and I think I suspect

(01:15:26):
there was a bit of devilment.So things started to be seen, just
gently, just little things to beginwith, just curious little events. Was
that somebody flitting through the trees therethat could be in a cloak, could
be and so this idea of therebeing somebody, as it were, living

(01:15:48):
in Highgate was seeded in people's mindsand then it took off. People actually
began to see for themselves. Ithink some of these things were deliberate.
I think David and Sean did dostunts. Somebody dressed up, somebody did
flit around and was therefore seen.But I think some people probably they were

(01:16:12):
so sure that we're going to seesomething, actually saw something. And before
very long this became just accepted.It was in the papers or the local
folk would go down just to see, could they sparked, you know,
the latest happening. And it becameaccepted that there was a vampire who lived

(01:16:32):
at Highgate, you know, sowe'd seen them on film, seen them
on Cellar Lloyd, and here theywere living there. So it wasn't very
long before vampire hunters decided they wouldcome up and try and find this vampire
and put them too. Oh,most definitely. They brought steaks, you

(01:16:57):
know. And now you can't getto the underground tombs and the crypts,
and you know, you just can'tthere just too much. You'd need an
army to get underground. But whatthey did find was the catacombs. The
catacombs are above ground. They justhad some flimsy, you know, sort

(01:17:19):
of iron work trail lists because theywere guarded in their day, so you
know, they were never worried aboutanybody breaking in because they were guarded.
But now there was nobody there.The place was locked up, and so
in they got. As you know, you've been into the catacombs, as
I don't know, close on athousand coffins. In those little niches,

(01:17:43):
those so called loculie you could easilyjust pull a coffin out of the niche.
What I should explain to your listeners, as I explained to you,
was that all the people buried atHighgate were buried in lead lined coffins.
The lead lining was there to keepin their decomposing gases. Because London was
such a disgusting place. The airwas so foul and pestilential. You know,

(01:18:09):
to breathe it could kill you.The idea was, we don't need
anymore, thank you very much,from hundreds of thousands of decomposing bodies,
so put them in a leadline coffinto keep in their decomposing gases. Well,
what the vampire hunters discovered was thatthe lead had indeed kept in decomposing

(01:18:29):
gases, but at the same timeit had kept out moisture and air.
So when they cut open the lead. The lead is soft. It wasn't
meant to be defensive. It wasmeant to just to contain inside. More
often than not was a body aslightly mummified body, a desiccated body.
The soft tissue had gone, butthe skin and the bones, you know,

(01:18:53):
the clothes, the eyes, thehair would all be there. And
if you're a vampire hunter, perfectyou had an a corpse to put a
steak in the heart, and that'swhat they began to so, but this
sort of news got out that ifyou wanted a body for any reason,
there were plenty going begging at HighgateCemetery. They don't want to stop.

(01:19:15):
You just come in at nighttime,let yourself in through the trellis, take
down a coffin, bring a goodknife, a pen knife, and cut
into them. There you'd have abody. And so hundreds of bodies,
a couple of hundred to be exact, were removed by voodoo worshippers, by

(01:19:36):
Satanists, you know, by blackmagic as a church of black magic that
came in and they were not likethe vampire hunters who were just trying to
shove a steak, and so theywere taking the bodies away for sort of
weird rituals. And what happened tobring everybody up to dat, as I
told you when you came round,David, was that didn't always take them

(01:19:58):
away. Maybe they were just buttwo or three bodies over the months were
left behind. One of a littleservant woman was taken up by local school
children, girls school children as asort of doll that they played with.
And then a couple of the blokesand male corpses had their heads kicked off
so that local lads who were inthere could play football with their heads.

(01:20:23):
And yeah, this got into thelocal newspapers, then into the national newspapers.
You know, here's Highgate Cemetery andhere's the local children playing with some
of its corpses. Big, big, big to do. And that's where
that's what spurred some local women,local women in Highgate to trace the company,

(01:20:45):
take it to court, challenge itto run the cemetery properly. And
when they demurred, they said noone could run it properly. It would
require far too much money to restore. They said, well, we don't
intend to spend any money. Weintend to get tears to do everything,
which they did. As a judgeawarded them ownership ownership transferred into seventy six

(01:21:06):
to the charity and it's been Friendsof Highgate Cemetery Trust ever since. And
lucky for all of us that wasthe case. So you can see how
coupling and occultist feud with a horrorfilm location, well preserved bodies and sensational
headlines might have whipped up the generalpublic into a bit of a frenzy.

(01:21:29):
I don't think anyone's ever said ChristopherLee specifically was the tall, dark entity
some folks ran across in their accountsas among his many talents, I don't
think he could vanish through a gate, though I wouldn't put it past him,
but his imposing figure could have inspiredsome imaginations at the time. Let's
break down some final thoughts as thesun begins to set on this particular episode.

(01:22:00):
Marnio fella, I've been through allof school on felling everything in about
the Golden But when not the neighborthat goes to walk time on my word
all that brainyard life, falling throughthe rain yard, I could I'm falling

(01:22:25):
in the side arm I just frostagain. Lord A mercy take away and
breenyard line as a quick side noteI mentioned it earlier, but there's a
pub a block north of the cemeterycalled the Flask. As with many locations

(01:22:48):
surrounding the cemetery places, I purposefullyadmitted from this episode so I could focus
only on the cemetery itself. Thepub is said to be haunted, The
apparition of a cavalier is said toshow itself from time to time before vanishing
through a pillar inside, and aSpanish barmaid supposedly hanged herself in the basement,

(01:23:10):
where some folks have reported feeling airblown on their necks in substantial cold
spots. I had lunch at theFlask after visiting the cemetery. I did
not experience anything odd, and atthe time, almost a year to the
date prior to recording this, Ihad no idea the place was supposed to

(01:23:32):
be haunted. What I can say, however, is that the food and
atmosphere were both great, and Ihighly recommend stopping in there if you're in
the area. So are there phantomsroaming Swain's Lane, living shadows in the
west, cemetery unquiet specters in theeast. The evidence comes in anecdotes and

(01:23:57):
a few blurry photos as I alwayssay anecdotes are good for drawing attention to
something so investigation can begin, butthey are not reliable evidence. If a
million people told a million similar stories, they could still all be wrong,
mistaken, or worse line, anecdotesgive us a place to start scrutiny,

(01:24:20):
but with no way to verify orreplicate the experience, they're pretty much useless.
Otherwise, the photos are better,but again unreliable as they are subjective,
especially in today's world of advanced tech. Away that break, I find

(01:24:43):
it almost impossible to draw any conclusionfrom a photo, especially not having been
there at the time it was taken. Paradolia plays heavily into interpretations, and
something as innocuous as reflected light orcigarette smoke can cause people to lose their
minds when viewed after the fact.So I don't put a lot of stock
into blurry images and low lying mists, not that there are a ton of

(01:25:08):
these involving Highgate anyway. Della Farranmentions in Haunted Highgate that starting around the
eighties, as the cemetery began tobe properly looked after again, reports of
ghosts and experiences started to decline noticeably. There were still accounts from then through
today, some of which I pointedout earlier, but the number of them

(01:25:30):
definitely saw a downturn. The simplestexplanation may not be the sexiest, but
it's often the correct one. Idon't have the answers to the slew of
reports and the seventies fervor that kickedup in Highgate, but it seems like
the most reasonable explanation is that aconfluence of events, filming, occult Shenanigan's

(01:25:55):
media, the science of panatology,which is the study of death, than
the forensics involved. All these thingscontributed to the legend of a beautiful and
creepy cemetery. Otherwise, the localshad no problem with the death and circumstances
mister Geary made possible back in eighteenthirty nine. In fact, it was

(01:26:16):
such a normal part of life thechildren made it into a playground of sorts.
I can't imagine myself as a childsaying, hey, look there's a
dead body, let's take the headoff and kick it around some Well,
that's just children. They may notbe American children, it's British children,
you know. I mean, theycan be very cruel. I have to
say, you see I have seen, interestingly enough, doesn't happen so much

(01:26:41):
these days, but there was aquite a few of these children came on
tours. They hadn't been back,and they came on tours, some of
which I took, and they broughtpolaroids. They'd taken photographs, particularly this
little woman, the woman I toldyou was made into a sort of doll.

(01:27:03):
So I have seen pictures of her, and you know, she doesn't
look really like a dead body.She looks rather dull, like she's in
her best clothes to be buried in, you know, to be and she's
very tiny. She was tiny anyway, and she she's not much bigger than

(01:27:25):
the doll. And so you know, they said to me, we didn't
think of them as dead people.And they didn't look like that. They
looked like dolls, a bit sortof porcelain like. So I mean that
that's presumably why they didn't freak out. Anyway, they certainly didn't freak out.
They she became really well known andall the all the girls apparently in

(01:27:50):
the area who bunked off school.But by bunked off, justic KP.
You don't use the phrase, Imean, you know, skipped school,
got out of school, took it, took an afternoon off. Then they
would climb over the wall to playin this in this wonderful they made.
They made a den, you know, a sort of gang headquarters in the
chapel and it was just a greatadventure playground. And they came across this

(01:28:14):
bonus, which was some corpses thatyou could play with. You could either
take them around as dolls or youcould kick them around as footballs. One
thing I was curious about was ifthere was any ghostly activity in the region
prior to the cemetery, A questionthat's probably impossible to answer by this point.

(01:28:35):
John was honest with me, No, no, But but what I'm
often asked, and I'm surprised youhaven't asked me, is are their ghosts
at Highgate today? And let meanswer that by saying, I go to
Highgate once maybe twice a week,and I go for a few hours,
so I'm not there all the time. And I was on the board,

(01:28:58):
on the charity board that runs theplace for eight years. I had my
own keys, so I've been therelate at night. We board meetings would
always be at eight o'clock and they'dfinished sometimes eleven o'clock. I've walked through
because there's a north gate which isnearer to my home, and I would
walk through the entire cemetery in thepitch black to use the north gate and
never ever experience anything. Right,So from my point of view, I'm

(01:29:21):
sorry, I can't tell you anything. However, far more important than me
as somebody who's there every day.And he's our grave digger. And his
name is Victor. There's a greatname, stayed out of Frankenstein. He
looks David. He looks straight outof Central Casting. He looks like he's

(01:29:44):
big guy, you know, sixfoot odd, burly guide digs all these
graves as his father did before him. So Victor's been a grave diger for
thirty years. His father thirty yearsbefore him, and Victor came along as
a child. Victor is in nodoubt that there are ghosts. He's seen
them. He's shown me where hereckons. The most haunted spot in the

(01:30:09):
in the cemetery is, which isa bricked up or sounds like something from
Edgar Allan Poe, a bricked tomb. We don't know why it was bricked
up. You can just see theoutline of where they bricked it up.
But he says around there or sortsof curious things, you know, implements,
spades and things move around and float, and there's there's there's there's what's

(01:30:32):
you know, sort of smoke andcurious figures and things. There's no doubt,
no doubt or whatsoever in Victor's mindthat the place is haunted. That's
cool. It's cool to get bothperspectives of that. Is that one in
the west side. It's in thewest side, Yes, it's just when
you go in in the courtyard,you know the arcade there. There's a

(01:30:56):
sort of an arcade because it's wherethe ladies would have sad when there was
a committal. It was thought inVictorian times that the ladies if they saw
a coffin being lowered into the ground, they'd faint or you know, have
the vapors or whatever. Is allridiculous, So they built these ar they're
called arcades because they're behind arches wherethey sat until the coffin was safely in

(01:31:17):
the ground, and then they wouldhave walked up themselves into the cemetery,
you know, to put some earthon it. And so behind the arcade
are there is this clearly walled uptomb of some kind, and that's apparently
the the the other thing that Victorwarns it's all about because because Victor is

(01:31:45):
because we don't have many committals thesedays, we don't have many burials.
So he's as much about re coffiningpeople from two hundred years ago as he
is about, you know, puttingpeople in the ground for the first time.
And he always says to me whenwe go into the catacombs, because
he has to if he's recoffining,obviously he has to move the old coffin

(01:32:06):
and then build a new one aroundit, you know, some wood on
the outside or whatever. And hesays, whenever I move any of these
coffins, I always listen carefully,and you should do the same, John,
you know, just have a bitof a listen, because if you
hear a hissing sound, it's becausethe gas has found a way to escape,

(01:32:28):
because if you move the coffins,sometimes it does, and that quite
often, and in his case,it's happened more often than he would wish.
The thing will explode, you know, because the gas will yeah,
and then you'll be covered in twohundred year old Victorian dead people not happening.
That's happened to him. It's happenedto him. Yes, it certainly
happens. He's very respectful about movingcoffins and on the other subject there.

(01:32:53):
I always feel slightly embarrassed about tellingthis story. But about three or four
weeks ago I was taking a groupof young lads around the cemetery. They
were from a local college, reallynice young guys. They were doing Gothic
studies or something, you know,for one of their exams. They are
probably about sixteen or seventeen. AndI was telling them, how, you

(01:33:14):
know, there's certain film has beenmade their Dracula has made there and more
recently, you know, Fantastic Beasts. So Johnny Debt was there, trying
to get their interest, you know, and saying do you have any questions?
And one of them said, yeah, can we see a dead body?
You know? And I said,well, we've got one hundred and
seventy thousand all them in here,but whether you'll see one anyway. When

(01:33:34):
we got into the catacombs, theyall of course got their mobile phones out,
all of them had lights in theand they all went scurrying around looking
in all the loculi, which Idon't do, you know, And of
course there's no lights in the catacombs. There wouldn't have been lights two hundred

(01:33:55):
years ago. Light electric light hadn'tbeen invented. So it's just as you
remember, David is just a lightwell which lets in, so the light
is very atmospheric, but it's notvery bright anyway. Would you believe About
three or four loculie away from whereI was talking, they found a coffin

(01:34:16):
where the lead had worn away,you know, just just perished after two
hundred years, exposing the contents within, which was basically as you might imagine
a skeleton, very clear, andthe scarlet or where they were absolutely cocker

(01:34:36):
hoop. They thought this was thevery best thing they could ever have wished
for to have found, you know, a two hundred year dead Victorian on
their trip to Highgate Sermetery. Well, I know, and I'm going to
be honest with you, I dofeel embarrassed. I should I tell people

(01:34:57):
this story, just like I've toldyou where we do our tours, and
I say to people, I'll showyou where it is and you can borrow
my flashlight if you want to.But you know it's up to you,
David. Everybody goes. Everybody hewas up to have a look. No
one, no one, you know, is demurs at all. Enough of

(01:35:18):
respect for the dead. We're goingto have a gorp at a two hundred
year old skeleton. It's not somethingyou see every day, for shure,
It's not something you see every day, you know, And it is natural.
I mean, nobody's nobody's arranged this. It's just happened and somebody happened
to see it. And I've actuallymentioned it to Victor, so he will.

(01:35:41):
Indeed, at some point he willrecough in that, but so far
he hasn't. So it's an extratreat for visitors on my tours. I'm
sorry that he wasn't there when youwent round you. I looked at a
few of those. Yeah, Ididn't see any skeletons. So yeah,
everybody listening, get out there now, Yeah now, to avoid disappointment.

(01:36:06):
Regardless of whether or not shadowy entitiesabide there, dark rituals have been performed
there, or strange individuals have hadmisadventures there, the fact remains that this
is an amazing location in an attractionnot to be missed. I was so
glad I took the time to visitand get a tour. Words can hardly

(01:36:28):
describe the beauty and history on displaythere. It's truly a marvel. John
hits us with the info on visiting. We have a wonderful website Highgate Cemetery
dot org and that will tell youall about the cemetery. We have cameras
inside some of the mausoleums. Wehave lots of pictures before and after pictures.

(01:36:50):
You know what the place looked like, and then your money because when
you pay to go round, that'swhere the money goes. Where all volunteers
doesn't come to us. The tours. There are tours every day of both
sides, West and East. There'sone every half an hour at weekends that's
when I'll be around and my colleaguesjust go on trip Advisor for the details,

(01:37:15):
the exact details, and look atwhat people say about the tours.
We are so proud of them.We get fantastic feedback. And so when
we started doing these tours, youknow in Earnest, which was sort of
during COVID really three or four yearsago, Entreprenvisor London has and I'm not

(01:37:36):
surprised, seventeen thousand things to doand Highgate Cemetery was the three hundred and
sixtieth best thing to do. Wellbecause of people going on the tours and
liking them and you know, givingus good reviews, we're now thirtieth best
thing to do and we are determinedto get up into that top twenty,

(01:37:58):
if not that top ten. Idon't think I'm david. You've been so
you could say, and we're notin the same room. A continent,
an ocean divides, so you won'tinsult me. You know, they are
something special, aren't they, andthey're well worth doing. It's absolutely I
do not miss if you go toLondon. This is just it's not that

(01:38:18):
far to get to. We tooka train and a bus and a quick
little jaunt and that was it,and then all of a sudden you're just
in another world and it's absolutely notto be missed. And it's just a
lovely area just in general, thewhole area around it. So you can
make a whole day of it ifyou want. But you got to,

(01:38:40):
yea, you make sure you takethe tour of the West Cemetery if you
can get that opportunity, I'd saymake time for the opportunity. Well,
it is very unusual. It's unlikeanything you've probably seen before. As I
say, it's Grade one listed,so it's really special. Even in Britain
has a lot of special buildings,so it's going to be a one off

(01:39:03):
experience and it's brought brought to life, no part intended. You know,
you can't read about it, youknow, or see videos of it.
You've really got to go and experienceit and feel that atmosphere and the catacombs
and you know, the Egyptian Avenueand now I don't know how many thousands

(01:39:25):
of these tours that I've taken nowover the years, I never ever tire
of taking people around and trying to, you know, get them to share
my enthusiasm, which they mostly do. With a lot of people volunteering,
you know, to join the ranksof US volunteers because they get it and
it is special and you know,so its future is secure, so many
people want to help in any way. Don't all do tours, but we

(01:39:49):
have landscape volunteers who you know,do all the all the all the gardens
and stuff. There's a huge workforcedoing everything. So if anyone's interested in
volunte hearing we'll find a job forthem, an amazing turnaround from almost fifty
years ago. If you visit andare lucky enough to get John as your

(01:40:10):
tour guide, please let him knowafter the tour that you heard about it
from David Flora of Blurry Photos podcast. He'll be well chuffed. That's Highgate
Cemetery in an overgrown, gorgeous gothicnutshell. My sincere thanks to John Waite

(01:40:36):
for taking the time to speak withme about the cemetery and being a wonderful
sport with the spooky stuff. Andnow it's time for the shadowy figure in
a top hat inhabiting your lane puns. Down by the cemetery, there lived

(01:40:59):
a guy Wayne, who used todress up in a big overcoat top hat
and try and scare off people whojust wanted a nice walk at night by
a quiet place. He spooked somany people a legend grew claiming a ghost
was haunting the cemetery and the narrowroad that ran by it. Locals understood
what was happening, however, andsoon words spread to just avoid the little

(01:41:23):
road because, as they said,it's Wayne's lane. Terry was a demon
who liked peace and quiet and nevergot upset about anything. One day,
he was sitting peacefully in Hell whensuddenly a portal opened and sucked him through
to a suburb of London. Alreadydisturbed, he looked around at a bunch

(01:41:46):
of naked, chanting occultists surrounding him. He got even more mad when he
found he was encased in a protectivecircle and couldn't move. When one of
the occultists began throwing holy water onhim, he blew top and exploded the
circle and naked bodies went flying.With the chanting stopped, he popped back
into Hell. And that, friends, is why you never want a mess

(01:42:10):
with an irate Demonary, there areyour terrible puns and another episode of blurry
Photos in the books. Hope you'reall well and be on the lookout for
the annual ghost Stories episode coming soon. For this episode of Blurry Photos,
I have been the hammered horror DavidFlora, don't stop blurry even
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