Current location: Lewisham11.11am, On the phone to Nicky, organising our day. We'd had a few vague plans for this Bank Holiday Monday, but the lack of sunshine ruined most of them. So we decided to head to Highgate Cemetery. Not a usual Bank Holiday activity, but Highgate is no ordinary graveyard.
It opened back in 1839, when private cemeteries were allowed to be built for the first time (thanks to too many people dying and not enough space for their bodies in the Council-run graveyards). Back then, death was a pretty huge industry, and people would pay the equivalent of tens of thousands of pounds to ensure their family members were buried in the 'best cemeteries'. Highgate was thought of as one of the most prestigious, and today it is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful.
It is also home to the graves of many a 'celebrity', including Karl Marx, Jeremy Beadle, Michael Faraday and Tom Sayers (once the bare-knuckle fighting world champion, don't you know) - click on the links to see their graves. It was a beautiful place with lots of stories and I wouldn't mind going back and visiting the East side another time (the newer part, built in 1854, and still used as a working cemetery today).
We then went for cake and tea... Not in the cemetery, but in a nearby park, and were treated to music by a string quartet. A proper good London day.
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