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Why London’s cemeteries are the perfect lockdown sanctuary

 (Ben Crombie)
(Ben Crombie)

From world-class restaurants to unparalleled galleries, it seems as though everything that makes London a truly remarkable place to live is shut for the foreseeable. Or is it? Alongside our numerous parks, the last places to remain unaffected by coronavirus-related closures are the capital’s cemeteries, which have now become the most unlikely — and thus far quieter — of exercise spots.

A few weeks ago I sampled this ghostly answer to a Joe Wicks workout for myself, navigating the winding, hilly paths of Highgate Cemetery for a daily constitutional like no other. Where else can you casually commune with the spirits of George Michael, Lucian Freud and Christina Rossetti while getting in your daily 10,000 steps? Gyms and swimming pools may be shuttered but Highgate remains open, offering ‘an opportunity for gentle exercise and fresh air during these difficult times’.

‘The gentle part is our rule, the exercise part is the Government’s rule,’ explains Ian Dungavell, chief executive of Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust. ‘We’re still a cemetery and one of the overwhelming aims we have is to keep an air of tranquillity and respectfulness.’ This means that local residents should by all means come by for a stroll, but jogging, bike rides, full blown HIIT workouts and yoga poses against the walls of the catacombs are definitely not permitted. With limited numbers allowed entry, Highgate’s patchwork of paths are perfect if you’d rather not battle the muddy dog-walking hordes of nearby Hampstead Heath.

Over the past few months north Londoner Shanthi Sivanesan has visited not just Highgate but Abney Park and Kensal Green cemeteries for a peaceful afternoon out. ‘Me and my boyfriend wanted to walk somewhere that wasn’t a regular park or the Thames to get away from crowds. Highgate Cemetery seemed the perfect spot to find some serenity amid the pandemic,’ she says. ‘It has that Victorian Gothic splendour going for it. I always feel better when I spy Karl Marx’s visage from afar.’

Yoga poses against the walls of the catacombs are definitely not permitted

The need for social distancing means that getting into Highgate’s two neighbouring graveyards is easier than it has been in years, with entry to the ornate West Cemetery — long regarded as the more picturesque of the pair — now possible without the need to be part of a tour group, for the first time in decades. So instead of being led around the site by a guide you can now choose your own route, strolling through the imposing Egyptian Avenue or cutting along the Circle of Lebanon tombs — which host the last resting place of the ground-breaking lesbian poet Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) — at your own pace.

Interestingly, this all marks something of a return to purpose for these majestic green spaces. ‘Not going on a guided tour means that you can actually experience the cemetery more like you could in Victorian times, as a more reflective journey through an interesting landscape,’ says Dungavell. ‘One of the special things about it is the lack of intrusion of the 21st century — there’s a degree of timelessness inside the fence. Once you get beyond the threshold of the cemetery, you’re transported back into another world.’

Constructed in the mid-1800s, Highgate Cemetery was part of what’s known as the Magnificent Seven, a collection of privately built burial grounds situated in what was then the countrified outskirts of London. Clean, ordered and above all beautiful, they offered a much-needed alternative to grim and dangerously overflowing inner-city churchyards. ‘These new graveyards were supposed to be the lungs of London,’ explains academic Catharine Arnold, author of Necropolis: London And It’s Dead. ‘At a time when London was being overrun by cholera epidemics and people were crammed into insanitary, shabby houses, it was great to be able to get out and go for a stroll along the graves.’ A healthy alternative to the threat of a sickness that was spread in crowded places? It’s a situation that seems eerily familiar.

These new cemeteries, which also included large sites in Kensal Green, Nunhead and Brompton, weren’t just places to bury the dead, but recreation spots for London’s fast-growing population. Here you could pay your respects at the family plot but also admire lavish architecture and elegant horticulture. ‘Maybe you’d even bring a picnic,’ says Arnold.

Yet in the middle of the past century, with the Magnificent Seven no longer profitable and the companies that built them bankrupt, they fell into disrepair. Highgate became a no-go zone, targeted by vandals, grave robbers and — on better days — film crews shooting Hammer horror movies. By the 1980s it was even proposed that it be knocked down, with flats built on the prime real estate. ‘When I first went it was very, very rundown and dangerous,’ remembers Arnold. ‘There was subsidence where graves had sunk and tree roots growing up through graves. You took your life in your hands when you were there; you could fall into a hole or be hit by a falling gravestone.’

Anglican Chapel and Colonnade, Brompton CemeteryAlamy Stock Photo
Anglican Chapel and Colonnade, Brompton CemeteryAlamy Stock Photo

Thanks to the work of Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, it’s a far safer place now and the formerly abandoned Abney Park and Tower Hamlets have also been reimagined, turned into family-friendly woodland nature reserves that are home to rare flora and fauna. Back in Highgate monuments have been restored and wobbly graves stabilised so visitors can walk around unmonitored. ‘There are still unsafe areas though,’ warns Dungavell of the newly accessible West Cemetery, where a full safety briefing is given to those who enter. ‘You have to stay on the paths, it’s not free roaming access. But people come in knowing what the situation is and what the risks are.’

Either way, it all sounds much more compelling than another lockdown plod up Primrose Hill, but isn’t going for a walk in a graveyard during a time in which death seems so prevalent, well, a little ghoulish? Arnold doesn’t think so. ‘We’re living face to face with death at the moment in the way that our generation just isn’t used to,’ she explains. ‘No generation since the Second World War has lived with constant existential fear as we’ve done over the past year. But at the same time, in an odd kind of way, there’s something very soothing about a graveyard, it just gives you this feeling of continuity, not to mention the visual — so many of them are stunning conservation areas.’

Abbney Park cemetery, HackneyAlamy Stock Photo
Abbney Park cemetery, HackneyAlamy Stock Photo

Of course, during the current lockdown, the primary purpose of a trip to any of London’s cemeteries has to be exercise rather than education. ‘The difficult thing at the moment is that we’re set up to tell people about the history and how interesting it is,’ says Dungavell. ‘That’s not an experience which is foregrounded at the moment, but it’s still great to be open — people have definitely appreciated a quieter and more tranquil place to take their exercise.’

It’s also still possible to reflect during such a trip — in fact, it’s hard not to. ‘Somehow visiting cemeteries also gives me a chance to mourn the lives lost to Covid,’ says graveyard regular Sivanesan. ‘The news brings on a feeling of helplessness. But a graveyard visit can feel like an act of conciliation.’

Tombstone trails: where to find the perfect cemetery stroll

Nunhead

Wild, rambling and strangely romantic, scale the rugged — and often muddy — Nunhead Cemetery for a stunning view of St Paul’s Cathedral. Its 52 acres are also popular with London’s twitcher community, with the grounds home to great spotted woodpeckers, tawny owls, sparrowhawks and jays.

Bunhill Fields

One of central London’s few surviving graveyards, Barbican’s Bunhill Fields was first used as a burial place in 1665. What it lacks in scale it makes up for in impressive interments; Patti Smith recently posted a picture on Instagram of her visiting Bunhill’s most famous poet and painter in residence, William Blake.

Abney Park

In the middle of Stoke Newington, Abney Park was Europe’s first-ever arboretum cemetery. More than a century and a half after it opened, its spectacular trees — as well as a crumbling Gothic chapel that featured in Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’ video — make for a majestic woodland escape.

Brompton

Home to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, dog-friendly Brompton is the most accessible of the Magnificent Seven, with a flat, straight main avenue running throughout. Yet it’s no less stunning than the other Victorian cemeteries, its grounds designed to resemble an Italianate open-air cathedral.

Kensal Green

The very first of the Magnificent Seven to open its gates, early royal burials made Kensal Green Cemetery popular with high society. Mixing Grecian and Gothic architecture, its sensitive layout was inspired by the pathways and botanical planting of Paris’s grand Père Lachaise Cemetery.

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