Highgate
Coordinates: 51°34′18″N 0°08′41″W / 51.5716°N 0.1448°W
Highgate (/ˈhaɪɡeɪt/ or /ˈhaɪɡᵻt/) is a suburban area of north London at the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath, 4.5 miles (7.2 km) north north-west of Charing Cross.
Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live.[1] It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character.
Until late Victorian times it was a distinct village outside London, sitting astride the main road to the north. The area retains many green expanses including the eastern part of Hampstead Heath, three ancient woods,[2] Waterlow Park and the eastern-facing slopes known as Highgate bowl.
At its centre is Highgate village, a collection of largely Georgian shops, pubs, restaurants and residential streets,[3] interspersed with diverse landmarks such as St Michael's Church and steeple, St. Joseph's Church and its green copper dome, Highgate School (1565), Jacksons Lane arts centre housed in a Grade II listed former church, the Gatehouse Inn dating from 1670[4] and Berthold Lubetkin's 1930s Highpoint buildings. Highgate also contains the Victorian cemetery in which the Communist philosopher Karl Marx is buried, and many other notable people.
The village is at the top of North Hill which provides views across London: it is 129 metres (423 ft) above sea level at its highest point.[5]
The area is divided between three London boroughs: Haringey in the north, Camden in the south and west, and Islington in the south and east. The postal district is N6.
History
Historically, Highgate adjoined the Bishop of London's hunting estate. Highgate gets its name from these hunting grounds, as there was a high, deer-proof hedge surrounding the estate: 'the gate in the hedge'.[6]
The bishop kept a toll-house where one of the main northward roads out of London entered his land. A number of pubs sprang up along the route, one of which, the Gatehouse, commemorates the toll-house.
In later centuries Highgate was associated with the highwayman Dick Turpin.
Hampstead Lane and Highgate Hill contain the red brick Victorian buildings of Highgate School and its adjacent Chapel of St Michael. The school has played a paramount role in the life of the village and has existed on its site since its founding was permitted by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I in 1565.
The area north of the High Street and Hampstead Lane was part of Hornsey parish and also later the Municipal Borough of Hornsey and the seat of that borough's governing body for many years.
Highgate Hill, the steep street linking Archway (traditionally called part of Upper Holloway) and Highgate village, was the route of the first cable car to be built in Europe. It operated between 1884 and 1909.
Like much of London, Highgate suffered damage during World War II by German air raids. The local tube station was used as a bomb shelter.
Transport and locale
.jpg)
Nearest places
Nearest tube stations
Places of interest
Highgate is known for its pubs which line the old high street and surrounding streets. Some notable favourites are the Angel, the Flask, the Duke's Head and the Wrestlers.
- Highgate Cemetery
- Highgate School
- Highgate Wood
- Jacksons Lane
- Kenwood House
- Highpoint I and II
- Athlone House formally known as Caen Wood Towers - (Home of the RAF Intelligence School 1942-48)
- Archway Bridge
- Furnival House
- St Michael's Church
Pronunciation
The name of the village is commonly /ˈhaɪɡeɪt/; however, the London Underground in announcements at Highgate tube station[7] uses the alternative pronunciation of /ˈhaɪɡᵻt/, where the final syllable matches the last syllable in "frigate".
Education
- For details of education in the Haringey portion of Highgate see the London Borough of Haringey article.
Modern notoriety
On Friday 26 August 1988, Michael Williams, a 43-year-old father from Highgate who worked for the Home Office in Pimlico, disappeared whilst travelling back home after an employee social. His body was found at Highgate Wood the next day. His killer has never been found.
The case remains unsolved despite being featured heavily in the national press and on BBC TV's Crimewatch programme.[8]
Notable inhabitants
Highgate Cemetery is the burial place of Karl Marx, Michael Faraday, Douglas Adams, George Eliot, Jacob Bronowski, Sir Ralph Richardson, Christina Rossetti, Sir Sidney Nolan, Alexander Litvinenko, Malcolm McLaren, Radclyffe Hall and Joseph Wolf.
- Adjacent to Highgate Cemetery is Holly Lodge Estate, one of only two housing-estates built in the UK for single women; formerly, it was the home and grounds of Baroness Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts.
- Between 1930 and 1939, the wife and son of Adolf Hitler's half-brother, Alois, lived in Highgate, before moving to the United States. Bridget and Patrick Hitler lived at 26 Priory Gardens.[9]
- Leslie Compton, formerly an Arsenal footballer and a Middlesex cricketer, owned a pub in Highgate after he retired from sports.
- Former Newcastle United striker Nile Ranger was born in Highgate.
- Rock star Rod Stewart was born and raised in Highgate.
The MP for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency since 1992 has been Labour's Glenda Jackson. It is now part of the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, formed at the 2010 general election. Catherine West is the Labour Party MP for the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency, which covers the northern half of Highgate village. The Boundary Commission report of 2003 recommended separating the Camden part of Highgate from the remainder of its present constituency and joining it with Kentish Town and Holborn to the south.
Many notable alumni have passed through Highgate School, either Masters or indeed Old Cholmeleians, the name given to old boys of the school. These include T.S. Eliot, who taught the poet laureate John Betjeman there, Gerard Manley Hopkins the poet, the composers John Taverner and John Rutter, John Venn the inventor of Venn diagrams, actor Geoffrey Palmer, Anthony Crosland MP and Labour reformer, and the cabinet minister Charles Clarke.
A blue plaque on a house at the top of North Hill notes that Charles Dickens stayed there in 1832, when he was 20 years old.
Peter Sellers lived as a boy in a cottage in Muswell Hill Road, where his mother had moved in order to send him to the Catholic St Aloysius Boys' School in Hornsey Lane.
In Victorian times St Mary Magdalene House of Charity in Highgate was a refuge for former prostitutes - "fallen women" - where Christina Rossetti was a volunteer from 1859 to 1870. It may have inspired her best-known poem, Goblin Market.
Siouxsie and the Banshees' bassist Steven Severin was born and brought up there.
Coleridge
In 1817 the poet, aesthetic philosopher and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to live in the Highgate home of Dr James Gillman in order to rehabilitate from his desperate opium addiction.[10] After Dr Gillman built a special wing for the poet, Coleridge lived there for the rest of his life, becoming known as the sage of Highgate.[11] While here some of his most famous poems, though written years earlier, were first published including "Kubla Khan". His literary autobiography, Biographia Literaria, appeared in 1817. His home became a place of pilgrimage for figures such as Carlyle and Emerson. He died there on 25 July 1834 and is buried in the crypt of St Michael's Church. The writer J. B. Priestley subsequently lived in the same house.
In popular culture
- Highgate's historic feel - in particular the gothic atmosphere of its cemetery - has provided the backdrop to a considerable number of films, including Hammer Horror films of the 1970s and, more recently, Shaun of the Dead and Dorian Gray.[12]
- A famous scene in pantomime is set in Highgate. Dick Whittington and His Cat are characters in an English story adapted to the stage in 1605. The Whittington Hospital on Highgate Hill is named after the story, and a statue of Dick's faithful pet stands nearby.
- "London Song" by Ray Davies: "If you're ever up on Highgate Hill on a clear day, You can see right down to Leicester Square". The cover shoot for the 1971 Kinks album Muswell Hillbillies took place in various locations around Highgate. The back inset on the original album cover showed the band on the traffic island that used to stand on the intersection of Southwood Lane and Castle Yard. The cover for their 1968 album Village Green Preservation Society was photographed on Parliament Hill, with Highgate as the backdrop.
- "Waterlow" by Mott the Hoople, from their 1971 album Wildlife, is a tribute to Highgate's Waterlow Park.
- Rod Stewart sings about his Highgate upbringing in "Highgate Shuffle", from the live album Unplugged... and Seated.
- In the song "Cross-Eyed Mary" by Jethro Tull, the title character is referred to as the "Robin Hood of Highgate".
- The pub tradition of Swearing on the Horns originated in Highgate.
- In Dickens' novel David Copperfield James Steerforth lives in a house at the top of Highgate West Hill.
- In the popular BBC sitcom, Are You Being Served, Mr. Lucas (played by Trevor Bannister) lives in Highgate.
- Un lieu incertain, a book by French novelist Fred Vargas, picks up the urban legend of the "Highgate Vampire".
See also
References
- ↑ Daily Telegraph: Highgate trumps Chelsea as priciest postcode
- ↑ Walk London: Capital Ring Section 11, Hendon Park to Highgate
- ↑ Visit London: Highgate village
- ↑ Upstairs at the Gatehouse (theatre company)
- ↑ The Mountains of England and Wales - London Borough Tops
- ↑ Murray, Ian (1993). Haringey before our time : a brief history. London: Hornsey Historical Society. p. 29. ISBN 0905794095.
- ↑ Hillary, Mark. "Arriving at Highgate tube station". Youtube. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- ↑ BBC Crimewatch - Michael Williams Murder
- ↑ Paddy Hitler, 26 Priory Gardens, N6, The Times, 15 December 2007
- ↑ The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Gillman, Reprinted by BiblioBAZAAR, LLC, 2008, ISBN 978-0-554-32226-1
- ↑ "Samuel Taylor Coleridge". Poets' Graves. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- ↑ Internet Movie Database: filming in Highgate
External links
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Section 11: | Capital Ring Walking Route | Section 12: |
|---|---|---|
| Hendon Park | Highgate | Stoke Newington |