7th Tick - Take a tour of Highgate Cemetery in London 

My name is Julia and I am a Taphophile. What's a Taphophile? Glad you asked. A taphophile by definition is "someone who is interested in cemeteries, gravestones, and the art and history that goes along with them."

Now I don't think that makes me weird or anything (ok, maybe a little bit weird), I just find them fascinating places. And peaceful, or at least they should be. Over the years, I've visited lots of cemeteries and done several tours. In a previous life, I even wrote about my visit to Springvale Botanical Cemetery in Melbourne. 

Anyway, originally on the list I had "Visit the Magnificent Seven Cemeteries of London." Really. That's what they're referred to as. So while I still want to visit the other five I haven't been to yet (I visited Brompton Cemetery a while ago), I decided that on the 60 before 60 list I'd add Highgate Cemetery. 

These Magnificent Seven, were built because for hundreds of years, almost all London's dead were buried in small parish churchyards, which of course soon became overcrowded. Along came the various plagues and pandemics (we can all relate) and bodies were piling up and needing a place to RIP faster than holes could be dug. So the powers that be decided that it would be better moving all these burials a bit further out of the centre of London, where the dead could do their RIP'ing in more peaceful surrounds. Not to mention the smell of all those decomposing bodies was mingling with the already smelly place that was London at the time. 

Highgate Cemetery was the third of the seven to be opened in 1839 (West) and 1860 (East) and probably the most visited one today. So making the most of a semi blue sky and no rain forecast, I set off. Took me around an hour and a half to get there, which gave me time to grab a coffee and take a walk around the East Side of the Cemetery where I found, amongst others, Malcolm McLaren (he of the Sex Pistols and Vivienne Westwood fame), Karl Marx (German Philosopher) and Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Author). 

Come 12pm, it was time to meet our knowledgeable guide Margaret for a stroll around the West Side of the Cemetery. Margaret was fab and provided us with a wealth of information about the Cemetery and the people buried there. We stopped by and paid our respects to one Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (aka George Michael) amongst others who I didn't know as well. The Egyptian Avenue was interesting as was getting to enter the Catacombs. We even got to spot one of the local foxes who call the Cemetery home. 

Oh, and because I do love a good list, here are the Magnificent Seven: 

1. Kensal Green Cemetery
2. West Norwood Cemetery
3. Highgate Cemetery
4. Abney Park Cemetery
5. Brompton Cemetery
6. Nunhead Cemetery
7. Tower Hamlets Cemetery