Tag Archives: vampires

Resting Places of Horror Film Icons, Part Two

Many of our literary forebears have monuments we can visit, where we can thank them for their inspiration. (Check my cemetery column here for details.) Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of many of our favorite horror movie actors and directors. Too many of them do not have grave sites, whether they were buried in unmarked graves or their ashes were scattered – or I couldn’t determine the disposition of their remains. I wish we could find some appropriate way to honor them.

What follows is a listing of actors gathered from the Horror Writers Association Facebook page and conversations with my local HWA chapter and others. I’ve included burial places, when known.

Part 1 of this list appeared yesterday. If I’ve missed anyone that should be included in this list, please drop a comment below and I’ll put together a Part 3.

William Marshall was a Shakespearean actor who starred in the Blaxploitation movies BLACKULA and its sequel, SCREAM, BLACKULA, SCREAM. After he died in 2003 from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease, Marshall was cremated.

Brooke McCarter played Paul in LOST BOYS and also appeared in an episode of the Twilight Zone reboot. He died in 2015 in Tampa, Florida of liver failure. His gravesite is unknown.

Mercedes McCambridge enjoyed a long career in character roles, but became a cult heroine after she provided the voice of Pazuzu in THE EXORCIST. She died in La Jolla, California in 2004 at the age of 87. Her ashes were scattered at sea.

Roddy McDowell was a child actor who worked into old age, starring in more genre movies than I can list, including THE HAUNTING OF HELL HOUSE and FRIGHT NIGHT. He died at home of cancer at the age of 70. His ashes were scattered at sea.

Darren McGavin will be remembered forever for playing journalist Carl Kolchak, THE NIGHT STALKER. After his death of natural causes at the age of 83, McGavin was buried at Hollywood Forever in Burbank, California in 2006.

Vic Morrow died during the filming of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE in 1982. He was buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California. His grave marker says, “I loved him as Dad.”

Paul Naschy was a Spanish actor who made his debut as a werewolf in FRANKENSTEIN’S BLOODY TERROR in 1968. He died in 2009 at the age of 75 and was buried in the Burgos Municipal Cemetery in Castille, Spain.

The original Horror Hostess Vampira set the bar for all who followed. Maila Nurmi may be best remembered as Bela Lugosi’s reanimated wife in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. When she died in 2008 at the age of 85, friends arranged for her to be buried at Hollywood Forever in Burbank, California.

Heather ORourkeBlond child actress Heather O’Rourke starred in the POLTERGEIST movies as Carol Anne. She died at the age of 12 of a bowel obstruction before the final movie was released. She is buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Although Russian-born Maria Ouspenskaya is best remembered for playing the gypsy fortune teller opposite Lon Chaney Jr. in THE WOLF MAN, she was twice nominated for Academy Awards. She died after suffering a stroke in 1943 and was buried in Forest Lawn, Glendale.

After Bill Paxton climbed up on the bar in NEAR DARK, vampires would never be the same. He also featured in ALIENS and PREDATOR 2, among many others. He died unexpectedly at the age of 61 of complications following heart surgery. Paxton was buried in the Court of Liberty at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

Anthony Perkins created the career-defining role of Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. He died of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 60 in 1992. Perkins was cremated and his ashes kept on an altar at his residence in the Hollywood Hills. His urn is inscribed, “Don’t Fence Me In.”

Born in Poland, Ingrid Pitt was interned in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. After the war, she moved to England. Her breakout role was THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, followed by COUNTESS DRACULA, and THE WICKER MAN. She is buried in the Richmond and East Sheen Cemeteries, in London, England.

From THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL to THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES to Roger Corman’s Poe movies, Vincent Price was always elegant and at least slightly mad. His ashes were scattered off Point Dume, California.

Claude Rains played the iconic INVISIBLE MAN twice. The 1966 remake was his final movie role. When he died of an abdominal hemorrhage at the age of 77, Rains was buried in Red Hill Cemetery, Mountonborough, New Hampshire. His monument says, “Soul, once living, lives forever.”

Basil Rathbone played Baron Wolf von Frankenstein in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and returned to horror in Roger Corman’s TALES OF TERROR. Rathbone died of a heart attack in 1967 and was buried in the mausoleum at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Oliver Reed starred in CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF as a young man, played Bill Sikes in OLIVER!, but really outdid himself as Urbain Grandier in Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS. Reed died in Malta in 1999 while filming GLADIATOR at the age of 61. He was buried in Bruhenny Graveyard in County Cork, Ireland, where his headstone was placed with a view of his favorite pub.

Michael Ripper worked for Hammer Horror for 25 years, playing character parts opposite Christopher Lee (9 times) and Peter Cushing (7 times). In all, Ripper appeared in 35 Hammer movies. He died at the age of 87 in 2000 and received a non-cemetery burial. I couldn’t find any more information.

German Robles’ performance in EL VAMPIRO is said to have influenced Christopher Lee’s DRACULA. Robles died in Mexico City in November 2015, but his burial site is unknown.

Lina Romay starred in 150 low-budget films directed by her partner Jess Franco. She debuted in LA MALIDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN but her first major role was in FEMALE VAMPIRE. She died of cancer in 2012 at the age of 57. Her ashes were given to family or friends.

George Romero, father of the modern zombie movie, is buried at the Toronto Necropolis Cemetery in Ontario, Canada. Romero died in his sleep while battling lung cancer in 2017. He was 77.

Zelda Rubenstein came to acting in her 40s, but found fame playing the psychic Tangina Barrons in the POLTERGEIST franchise. Rubenstein was one of the first celebrity AIDS spokespeople. She died of cardiac and pulmonary failure in 2010 at the age of 76. Her ashes were given to her family.

Remembered for playing Count Orloff in F.W. Murnau’s NOSFERATU: EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUNES, Max Schreck is buried in Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahndorf in Brandenburg, Germany. He was 56 when he died in 1936.

Angus Scrimm gained fame playing the Tall Man in the PHANTASM movies. In 2016, Scrimm died at the age of 89 from prostate cancer. The location of his grave is unknown.

Creator of THE TWILIGHT ZONE and NIGHT GALLERY, Rod Serling died of complications from heart surgery at the age of 50. He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Interlaken, New York.

During World War II, French actress Simone Simon made CAT PEOPLE and its sequel CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE. After the war, she returned to France, where she died in 2005 at the age of 94. She is buried in the Cemetery of Chateau-Gombert in Provence. Her grave is marked with lovely ceramic flowers called immortelles.

Mexican actress Lupita Tovar starred in the Spanish-language version of DRACULA, which was filmed on the same sets as the Lugosi version in the evenings after the English version wrapped for the day. She was 20 at the time. She died of heart disease in 2016 at the age of 106. She was buried in Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California. (Thanks to Lisa Neff for the information!)

Long before he appeared in CASABLANCA, Conrad Veidt appeared in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and THE MAN WHO LAUGHED (whose title character inspired Bob Kane’s Joker). After Veidt’s death from a heart attack while golfing, his ashes were originally kept in the columbarium at Ferncliffe Cemetery in New York. After his wife’s death, remains of the two were commingled and enshrined at Golders Green Columbarium in London, England.

David Warbeck starred in Fulci’s THE BEYOND. His last movie was the vampire film RAZOR BLADE SMILE. He died of cancer in 1997 at the age of 55. The location of his grave is unknown.

The director of Universal’s FRANKENSTEIN and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, James Whale drowned himself in his swimming pool in 1957. His ashes reside in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California.

As Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, Gene Wilder rewarded our love for the old Universal monsters with YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. Wilder died of complications of Alzheimer’s disease in 2016 and was cremated. The disposition of his remains is unknown.

Bob Wilkins, the host of Creature Features and other shows in Northern California, retired to Reno, Nevada, where he died of complications of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2009. His burial site in unknown.

After featuring in DAMNATION ALLEY, WRATH OF KHAN, and THE TERMINATOR, Paul Winfield died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 64. He was buried in the Court of Liberty in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills with his husband, Chuck Gillan Jr.

Director of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, the so-called worst movie ever made, Ed Wood died of a heart attack at the age of 54 in 1978. His ashes were scattered.

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Natalie Wood’s monument

Natalie Wood drowned mysteriously during the filming of BRAINSTORM, which was finally released two years later in 1983. An investigation into her death has recently been reopened. She was buried in Westwood Memorial Park.

One of the first of the Hollywood Scream Queens, Fay Wray is best remembered for playing Ann Darrow in KING KONG. She died at the age of 96 in 2004 and is buried in Hollywood Forever under a very minimal black headstone.

Remember, if you catch an error or think of anyone I’ve missed, please let me know.

Cemetery of the Week #171: Chestnut Hill Cemetery

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Mercy’s grave, as photographed by the Rhode Island Historical Society. https://wp.me/p7ud3-184

Chestnut Hill Cemetery
Also known as Chestnut Hill Baptist Church Cemetery, Rhode Island Historical Cemetery #22
467 Ten Rod Road (Route 102)
Exeter, Rhode Island 02822
Opened: 1838
Size: 10 acres
Number of interments: approximately 1000

Rather than Bram Stoker’s Dracula, rising from his grave to roam the night, New England vampires could prey upon the living while confined inside their coffins. There are almost 20 documented instances of vampires being exhumed in New England, beginning even before to the American Revolution.

One of the last recorded vampire tales in New England took place in the 1880s. George and Mary Brown farmed outside the town of Exeter, Rhode Island.  Mary Brown was struck by an illness, probably tuberculosis, that drained her vitality.  She withered and died in 1883.

The following year, Mary’s eldest daughter, Mary Olive, died at the age of 20.

Several years passed before George and Mary’s son Edwin began to fade.  The local physician suggested that Edwin and his wife move to Colorado Springs to recover.

The cold, dry air did seem to help Edwin, but while he was recuperating, his sister Mercy began to fail.  Edwin rushed home to say goodbye to her. She died in January 1892 at the age of 19.

Since winter had frozen the ground solid, Mercy’s body was placed in the receiving crypt at Chestnut Hill Cemetery. Receiving crypts were common, back before cemeteries developed heating blankets that could thaw the winter ground.  Old cemeteries often still have these crypts, although nowadays the sheds are used to store mowers and other equipment.

Back in the 1890s, Edwin’s health deteriorated.  George Brown’s neighbors decided Edwin was suffering from Vampire’s Grasp. The only way to save him would be to “perform the folk ritual.”

On March 17, 1892, the doctor and George Brown’s neighbors dug up the graves of Mary and Mary Olive. George stayed home. Both women’s corpses were badly decomposed, as one would expect after almost a decade in the ground.

Then the receiving crypt was opened.  Mercy’s coffin was still inside it. When the mob opened her coffin, Mercy had turned sideways inside it. Rather than considering if she had been buried alive — or merely jostled as she was carried to the crypt — onlookers took that as assurance she was the vampire.

Other than her strange position, Mercy’s body looked as expected. But when the doctor removed her heart and liver, they leaked blood.

The neighbors placed the organs on a rock in the cemetery and set them afire. The ashes were collected up and mixed with liquor to be fed to Edwin.  Unfortunately, the remedy didn’t save him.  He died six weeks later, in May.

When Bram Stoker died in 1897, newspaper clippings about Mercy’s exhumation were found in his possession. H. P. Lovecraft, who lived in nearby Providence, mentioned Mercy in his story, “The Shunned House.”

Whether she roamed from her tomb or not beforehand, Mercy now turns up as a ghost in this “nondescript little cemetery.” Apparently, blue lights hover close to her grave.

Mercy’s gravestone is anchored to the ground to prevent it from being stolen. There is reported to be a guest book in a tupperware box for you to sign. Remember that this cemetery is still in use, so if you visit, behave yourself.

Useful links:

Findagrave listing: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1451811/chestnut-hill-cemetery

Odd Things I’ve Seen visitation report and photos: http://www.oddthingsiveseen.com/2007/12/grave-of-mercy-brown-vampire.html

Mercy’s story with the family obituaries: https://rihs.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/have-mercy/

The Atlas Obscura listing, with directions to another Rhode Island vampire’s grave as well: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-mercy-brown

The reference about Stoker & Lovecraft: https://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/chestnut-hill-cemetery/

 

A Restless Wind is Blowing Through Highgate

 

winterNo one agrees where this story started or rather, there are as many beginnings as there are storytellers.

In the early days, Hampstead Heath was the only thing sinister about the area. Highwaymen flourished there, like Dick Turpin, whose ghost still loiters ’round the pub. The village of Highgate stood on a tall hill overlooking the city of London, sprawled across the river plain below. Highgate’s name described its function: it served as point of entry for farm goods coming from the countryside to feed and clothe the metropolis.

Following the nondenominational fashion set by Pere-Lachaise in Paris, Highgate Cemetery was founded in 1839. The “garden cemetery” was envisioned as a place of beauty where Londoners could escape the smoke and dirt of their city. It offered controlled nature — serene, park-like, and safe — beside the wilderness of Hampstead Heath.

The cemetery made the area fashionable. While it was no Kensal Green — final home of a Prince of England, William Makepeace Thackery, Wilkie Collins, Lady Byron, and friends of Shelley’s — Highgate managed to land Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Radclyffe Hall, the family of Charles Dickens, as well as various balloonists, menagerists, scientists, and philosophers like Karl Marx.

Among the artistic souls buried in the western half of the graveyard was Elizabeth Siddal, muse, mistress, and eventually wife to Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A hat-maker’s assistant, beautiful Lizzie had been wooed by the dashing Italian immigrant, who refused to settle down after he’d won her heart. Increasingly depressed after a stillborn child, Lizzie took her own life with an overdose of laudanum in 1862. At the graveside service, distraught Rossetti placed a handwritten volume of poems on the pillow just before the coffin lid was sealed.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Venus VerticordiaRossetti’s fortunes faltered after his muse removed herself from the mortal plane. He became convinced that he was going blind and losing his painterly skill, that he was destined to be remembered as a poet rather than as a painter. His questionably scrupulous agent persuaded Rossetti that he could cement his reputation if only he’d publish the poems consigned to Lizzie’s grave. In October 1869, permission was granted to exhume the coffin, as long as it was done by night and did not upset the neighbors or patrons of the cemetery. By flickering torchlight, workmen peeled back the damp rich dirt of England.

This is perhaps where our story begins in earnest: When Lizzie’s coffin was forced open, all that remained of her beauty was the silken mass of her auburn mane. The grave robbers brushed tendrils of hair from the silk-bound manuscript, which was fumigated, then published by the profligate poet. Lizzie’s sad remains were returned to the cold autumn ground.

The story was leaked, possibly by one of the horrified torchbearers, to Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper. Elizabeth Miller in her book Dracula: Sense and Nonsense theorizes that Bram Stoker read the news while working on Dracula, since the paper also reviewed the Lyceum’s production of King Lear, with which Stoker was involved. If that’s the case, Lizzie Siddal served in death as another man’s muse, transmuted into Lucy Westenra and given life beyond the grave. David J. Skal reports in V is for Vampire that Stoker was once a neighbor of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s.

Whether Highgate Cemetery was the churchyard described by Stoker remains a matter of debate. In Dracula, Van Helsing says, “Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord.” The fictional newspaper reports of Lucy’s postmortem attacks on children are headlined Hampstead, the town west of the heath. Highgate lies on its eastern edge.

Whatever the true inspiration, the century turned. England endured World War I, in which one of every three soldiers perished. At the war’s end, the influenza pandemic swept the country, killing thousands. The young and vigorous, plucked in their prime, glutted the nation’s graveyards.

World War II finished the job, wiping out most of a generation of men. In the first decades of the century, whole families had ceased to exist. No one survived to tend the graves; no money came from new burials to pay the army of gardeners. In the 1940s, Highgate was abandoned to nature. And Nature ran rampant.

By the end of the 1960s, Highgate Cemetery was choked with weeds, shadowed by a dense forest of ornamental trees, and colonized by wildlife from the Heath that included foxes, hedgehogs, rabbits, songbirds, and hundreds of insect varieties.

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In 1968, the cemetery featured in Taste the Blood of Dracula, one of Hammer Studio’s costume thrillers starring Christopher Lee as the immortal count. In the film, three bored businessmen contact a lord whose family cut him off for practicing Satanism in the family chapel. The men acquire a vial of dried blood and Dracula’s cape, then travel by carriage to Highgate. They climb over a fallen tree, fight through the underbrush, and find themselves at the creaking gate of the Egyptian Avenue. They navigate the sunken catacombs, then enter a towering mausoleum (whose interior existed only on a soundstage) to reconstitute the eponymous count. So, perhaps, our story begins.

In March 1969, the British Psychic and Occult Society heard tales of a tall black apparition amidst the graves at sunset or after dark. The original sighting was traced to an accountant referred to as Thornton in the Society’s report, Beyond the Highgate Vampire. Thornton had been exploring the cemetery. At dusk, as he attempted to leave, he became hopelessly lost. A sudden sense of dread caused him to turn. Over him loomed a dark specter that transfixed him with its glare. He lost all sense of time and felt drained of energy when it finally released him.

The Society investigated the cemetery. Mostly, it discovered widespread vandalism: “vaults broken open and coffins literally smashed apart.” A vault on the main pathway had been forced open and the coffins inside set afire.

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Highgate Cemetery, photographed in June 2016 by Loren Rhoads.

Though this clearly had a human origin, sightings of the dark figure continued. The Society decided to perform a séance in the cemetery at midnight on August 17, 1970. They cast a protective circle on the ground, sealing it with consecrated water and salt. After the séance began, they heard muffled voices coming toward them. The police had decided belatedly to patrol the cemetery. Despite the dangers of leaving the circle before the spirits were banished, Society members scattered. Society president David Farrant was arrested as he tried to slip past the police. Among the paraphernalia he carried was a short wooden stake with a string for measuring out the magic circle. This was taken as evidence that he had been hunting vampires.

Farrant was acquitted, since legally Highgate was open to the public, even at midnight. The magistrate likened the hunt for vampires to the search for the Loch Ness Monster: foolish, but harmless.

In his book, Farrant meanders off on a justification of his Wiccan faith and the evils of Christianity. This is at odds with the photo of him included in the booklet (published 1997) “hunting a vampire” clutching a crucifix and “Holy Bible.” Apparently his beliefs about the efficacy of the crucifix have evolved over the last three decades. He posits a ley line that runs from a haunted pub in Highgate Village called Ye Olde Gatehouse under the old “yew” tree in the center of the cemetery’s columbarium. (In all other references, the tree is a cedar — hence, the area’s designation as the Circle of Lebanon.)

The British Psychic and Occult Society officially closed its examination in 1973 due, Farrant writes, to the “concern of the cemetery authorities and the police who saw the Society investigation as being responsible for a marked increase in damage and desecration at the cemetery.” He neglects to mention that he was in court again in June 1974. The prosecution contended that “Farrant was the vampire of Highgate,” according to Rosemary Ellen Guiley in her book Vampires Among Us. Farrant was charged with maliciously damaging a memorial to the dead, interfering with a dead body, tampering with witnesses by sending them poppets, and possession of a firearm. The last charge earned him several years in prison.

Perhaps this was neither the beginning nor the end of the story. Sean Manchester, then president of the British Occult Society (no relation to the British Psychic and Occult Society), claims to have begun investigating phenomena at Highgate Cemetery in 1967. Manchester interviewed two 16-year-old schoolgirls who reported seeing graves inside Highgate yawn open and corpses rise. Afterward, one of the girls, Elizabeth Wojdyla, suffered nightmares where a corpse-faced man tried to get into her bedroom.

When Manchester caught up with Elizabeth again in 1969, “her features had grown cadaverous.” Her neck had two “highly inflamed swellings” with holes in their centers. Manchester vowed to rescue her from the vampire obviously feeding on her.

In his quest, Manchester encountered another young woman whom he believed was under vampiric attack. In his book The Highgate Vampire, he refers to her as Lusia. Like Lucy Westenra, Lusia walked in her sleep. Manchester followed her from her apartment into Highgate Cemetery, up the “haunted icy path” through the Egyptian Avenue to the catacombs in the Circle of Lebanon. Lusia paused before one of the tombs and struggled to open it. Manchester flung a crucifix between her and the door. The girl collapsed and had to be carried home. Her parents must have been thrilled when Manchester showed up with her.

Manchester went to the press in February 1970. He told the Hampstead and Highgate Express, “We would like to exorcise the vampire by the traditional and approved manner — drive a stake through its heart with one blow just after dawn, chop off its head with a gravedigger’s shovel, and burn what remains.”

When no volunteers stepped forward to help, Manchester approached the media again in March, intruding while David Farrant was being interviewed by a television crew about the “hauntings” inside Highgate. Farrant stresses that he took great care to avoid the term vampire, but a “theatrical character” announced that he intended to lead a vampire hunt the following night.

Hundreds of people showed up to assist. The police arrived with spotlights. Despite the carnival atmosphere, Manchester and an assistant chopped a hole through the roof of the tomb in the catacombs. Manchester was lowered by rope into the vault, where he found three empty coffins. He sprinkled each with garlic and holy water, then encircled each with salt, according to Carol Page’s Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires.

The exorcism didn’t halt the desecration of graves, the mutilation of corpses, or the slaughter of foxes and other small animals found drained of blood in the cemetery. In fact, after the exorcism, someone dragged a woman’s corpse from her grave, chopped off her head, drove a stake her through the heart, and left her body lying in the middle of a pathway.

In the winter of 1973, Manchester eventually traced the King Vampire to an abandoned mansion in north London (already investigated by Farrant’s BPOS as haunted), where he discovered an enormous black casket. Manchester and his assistant Arthur dragged it outside. Manchester kicked the coffin lid off and … Well, perhaps it’s best to let him tell the story: “Burning, fierce eyes beneath black furrowed brows stared with hellish reflection. Yellow at the edges with blood-red centres, they were unlike any other beast of prey.”

Manchester staked the corpse through its heart, shielding his ears “as a terrible roar emitted from the bowels of hell.” The corpse turned to brown slime. The stench was so awful, Arthur forgot to work his camera and the event passed unrecorded.

The two men built a pyre, tossed the coffin on, doused it with gasoline, and set it ablaze. Incredibly, no one in London noticed the explosion, the smell, or the smoke.

While he’s never been officially charged with vandalism or “interfering with a corpse,” Manchester remains persona non grata at Highgate Cemetery.

In 1975, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery formed after the cemetery’s owner shut down the Western Cemetery for economic reasons. FOHC volunteers worked on Saturday afternoons to clear brambles, fell invasive trees, and reopen access to gravesites. Eventually, FOHC bought the entire cemetery. They now sell guidebooks and offer tours to raise money for their work.

Which is where I come into the story. I visited Highgate for the second time in June 1995. I was determined to see the western side of the graveyard, where the Rossettis and Lizzie Siddal are buried. Outside the large “undertaker’s gothic” chapel, I paid three pounds to join a guided tour. Our guide explained that a tunnel runs from the Anglican chapel under Swain’s Lane to the “newer” eastern side of the cemetery (where the first burial occurred in 1860) so that a coffin never leaves consecrated ground once the body has been blessed.
The Friends of Highgate treat the western side of the cemetery as “managed wilderness.” Simply cutting back the ivy would be a full-time job, so they only trim enough of the brush to keep some paths open and remove trees whose roots threaten monuments. The British National Trust and British Heritage have both funded conservation efforts. For the most part, the Friends maintain the cemetery in its romantic decay. Only in the most extreme cases, like the Circle of Lebanon, do they resort to restoration.

 

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Highgate’s Egyptian Avenue, photographed in June 2016 by Loren Rhoads.

One of the highlights of the tour was finally seeing the Egyptian Avenue for myself. It was originally painted red, blue, and yellow, to lure tourists to the cemetery. Now it is simple gray. An Egyptian arch with obelisks on either side leads to a sunken avenue open to the sky. Family tombs, carved into the hillside, line the avenue. Each is set apart from the next by columns with lotus bud capitals. The valley was wonderfully cool in the humid June afternoon.

We followed the avenue to its end in the ring of catacombs called the Circle of Lebanon. The old cedar in the center survives from the original Ashurst estate, predating the cemetery by at least 150 years. Its spreading branches curtained our tour group 20 feet below the surface of the ground. FOHC is concerned for the tree because of its age and having had the ground around cut away beneath it.

We passed Radclyffe Hall’s tomb without remark from the guide. I happened to turn at the right moment to read, “And if God choose, I shall but love thee better after Death,” the epitaph chosen by Hall’s surviving girlfriend. Una Troubridge had hoped to be buried beside the love of her life, but died in Rome and was never returned home. I snapped a quick murky photo as the tour group moved on without me.

The tour climbed up to the mausoleum of Julius Beer. It is the “largest and grandest of all the privately owned buildings in the Cemetery,” according to the FOHC guidebook. Its design was inspired by the tomb of King Mausolus (from whom we draw the word mausoleum) at Halicarnassus, Turkey — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Beer’s mausoleum has a stunning blue and gold mosaic ceiling. After it was broken into and its residents dragged out of their coffins, the mausoleum has been converted to a tool shed by the Friends of Highgate.

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The Beer family mausoleum, Highgate, June 2016. Photo by Loren Rhoads.

In the Victorian era, the Jewish Beer family migrated to London from Frankfurt. Julius Beer owned the London Observer, but society shunned him because of his religion. In order to be buried in Highgate, he converted to the Church of England in the 1880s. Previous to that, people came to Highgate on weekends to picnic on the land above the Circle of Lebanon. Beer’s revenge on society was to construct his mausoleum to obstruct their view. Rumor insinuated that he had killed his family. His wife died first, followed by their eight-year-old consumptive daughter. Inside the mausoleum, a marble angel stoops to kiss a life-sized child — whose face was modeled on the death mask of Beer’s little girl. Beer himself died of apoplexy in his early 40s. His son Frederick took over the Observer and slid into madness.

Although he spent 5000 pounds on his mausoleum and owned a major newspaper, Beer did not receive an obituary in the London Times. If ever anyone deserved to come back as a vampire, I nominate Julius Beer. Persecuted for his religion in life, hounded by ugly rumors after his death, he seems most justified to be the demonic figure in black which inhabited Highgate Cemetery.