Highgate Cemetery

Highgate opened in 1839 as one of the Magnificent Seven, commercial cemeteries built when London's churchyards had become dangerously overfull. The West Cemetery holds its architectural set pieces: the Egyptian Avenue, an entrance flanked by obelisks leading to the Circle of Lebanon, a ring of catacombs built around a cedar that predated the cemetery and stood until 2019. Commercial burial collapsed in the twentieth century and the ground was abandoned to bramble and ivy until volunteers took it over in 1975; they chose to manage rather than clear it, so it functions as a woodland nature reserve with graves in it. Karl Marx is in the East Cemetery under a bust of 1956, alongside George Eliot, Douglas Adams and Malcolm McLaren.

What you actually see

• The Egyptian Avenue - an obelisk-flanked entrance to the catacombs.
• The Circle of Lebanon - a ring of vaults built around a cedar tree.
• Marx's tomb - the 1956 bust in the East Cemetery, still a pilgrimage point.
• The managed wildness - woodland deliberately left growing among the graves.

When to go

April to June for green and bluebells, September to November for autumn colour; the cemetery is at its most atmospheric in mist. The West Cemetery is seen only on a booked guided tour with limited places.

Honest expectations

The West Cemetery requires a booked tour and cannot be wandered freely. Paths are steep, uneven and slippery. It remains an active burial ground and funerals close sections without notice. Marx's tomb has been attacked repeatedly and shows the repairs.

Nearby

Waterlow Park adjoins; Hampstead Heath lies west and Highgate village above.