Places
2nd Oct 2012
Highgate Cemetery
With the dawning of October, the lead up to Halloween has officially begun. Alongside dressing up and eating a copious amount of sugar, Halloween is primarily for remembering the dead.
If you wish to celebrate the lives of some of our greatest literary legends, Highgate Cemetery is the place for you. It contains the final resting places of several renowned authors, ideal for paying tribute to long gone members of the literary elite.
Radclyffe Hall and George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) have both been laid to rest here, alongside Beryl Bainbridge, Stella Gibbons and Christina Rossetti. Take a sample of their greatest work with you, be it fiction or poetry, and read aside the graves.
Can’t make it to Highgate? The cemetery is so famous it’s even used as a location in many renowned novels. Bram Stoker’s Dracula based the infamous Kingstead Cemetery scenes on Highgate, making it a truly Gothic location to visit on All Hallows Eve.
You can also find references in Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier, and Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly. However, something you won’t find in the books is this amazing gravestone marking the final resting place of Jim Stanford – now that’s not something you see every day!
Will you be visiting any final resting places to celebrate this Halloween? Let us know your favourite places to pay your respects.
Gina Kershaw
(Images via Ali Wade, DG Jones and Danny Birchall)
