Highgate Cemetery
Victorian necropolis of crooked tombs where a 'Vampire' panic gripped London in the 1970s.
Case File No. 052
FILE 01 The Legend
Opened in 1839, Highgate's Victorian section became a wilderness of tilted tombs and engulfing ivy. By the late 1960s newspapers reported a 'tall black figure' with 'hypnotic red eyes' among the tombs. In 1970 the 'Highgate Vampire' hunt drew hundreds of self-styled vampire hunters to the gates on Friday the 13th of March. Satanic symbols were found daubed on crypts; one vault was broken into and a corpse allegedly staked.
FILE 02 The Sightings Log
A woman reported being 'hypnotised and knocked flat' by the figure near the North Gate in 1969. A man claimed the entity passed through a locked gate. Locals reported foxes screaming and graves opening. Author David Farrant, who broke the story, reported being physically attacked by 'something' in the cemetery in 1973.
FILE 03 The Skeptic’s File
Farrant and rival ghost-hunter Seán Manchester told competing, evolving stories for decades — a feud many researchers read as self-mythologising. The 'vampire' era coincided with the cemetery's real state: neglected, vandalised, full of foxes. The Friends of Highgate Cemetery, founded 1975, restored order and the sightings faded.