"It's like a VIP cemetary" - Mohima
Highgate Cemetery was our destination today!
Highgate Cemetery is known for the burials it has, many,
many famous writers, philosophers, politicians and activists have been laid to
rest in this very place and we were on our way to visit some of these graves.
History of Highgate Cemetery - http://highgatecemetery.org/about/history
Graveyards and burial grounds were crammed in between shops, houses and taverns — wherever there was space. In really bad situations undertakers, dressed as clergy, performed unauthorized and illegal burials. Bodies were wrapped in cheap material and buried amongst other human remains in graves just a few feet deep. Quicklime was often thrown over the body to help speed decomposition, so that within a few months the grave could be used again. The smell from these disease-ridden burial places was terrible. They were overcrowded, uncared for and neglected.
The cause of this situation was that in the early 1800s London had a population of just one million people. In the following years the population had increased rapidly and the number of deaths along with it. Very little new burial space had been put aside to cater for the growing numbers and by the early 1830s the authorities were stating that for public health reasons something had to be done.
Parliament passed a statute to the effect that seven new private cemeteries should be opened in the countryside around the capital for the burial of London’s dead. These cemeteries were Kensal Green 1833, West Norwood 1836, Highgate 1839, Abney Park 1840, Brompton 1840, Nunhead 1840 and Tower Hamlets 1841.
History of Highgate Cemetery - http://highgatecemetery.org/about/history
Graveyards and burial grounds were crammed in between shops, houses and taverns — wherever there was space. In really bad situations undertakers, dressed as clergy, performed unauthorized and illegal burials. Bodies were wrapped in cheap material and buried amongst other human remains in graves just a few feet deep. Quicklime was often thrown over the body to help speed decomposition, so that within a few months the grave could be used again. The smell from these disease-ridden burial places was terrible. They were overcrowded, uncared for and neglected.
The cause of this situation was that in the early 1800s London had a population of just one million people. In the following years the population had increased rapidly and the number of deaths along with it. Very little new burial space had been put aside to cater for the growing numbers and by the early 1830s the authorities were stating that for public health reasons something had to be done.
Parliament passed a statute to the effect that seven new private cemeteries should be opened in the countryside around the capital for the burial of London’s dead. These cemeteries were Kensal Green 1833, West Norwood 1836, Highgate 1839, Abney Park 1840, Brompton 1840, Nunhead 1840 and Tower Hamlets 1841.
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