Kingdom of Shadows:Hunting Trip in Highgate Cemetary

Graveyards. Graveyards are supposed to be a place of peace and quiet, an everlasting repository for those who have passed on before us, passed on to their final reward. However, around the world there are certain boneyards that have gained a reputation for being the home to some pretty restless spirits. Gravestompers, actively seek such places of eternal rest out in an attempt to have an experience of the paranormal kind. Unfortunately though, these amateur ghost hunters, whether intentionally or not, tend to be disrespectful and London’s Highgate Cemetary has been the scene of much disrespect over the years and probably due to this is why this seemingly innocent looking graveyard is said to house not just the spirits of the dead but a creature, a monster, that has been the subject of myths and legends for countless centuries. A creature that feeds on the blood of their victims, this creature that haunts this London boneyard I speak of is of course, the vampire.

Founded in 1839 by the city London to ease the congestion of the seven surrounding graveyards, Highgate Cemetary has suffered much desecration in it’s rather dubious history. For many years local police have discovered teens and adults alike skulking around the tombstones and vaults wearing black robes and taking part in dark satanic rituals to raise the spirits of the dead and summon the minions of the evil one. Many local researchers believe this is why Highgate is a hotbed of paranormal activity with numerous apparitions being heard, felt and seen over the years.

Local researchers who have made Highgate the focus of their investigations believe that the spirit population is far to numerous to count. Over the years folks walking past the cemetary have reported seeing such apparitions as a tall gray man wearing a long coat and a top hat. Some believe this spirit is the phantom of a caretaker from the early twentieth century still walking among the tombstones making sure his undead charges are ok. Other folks have seen the phantasm of a ghostly woman riding a bike on the adjoining sidewalk. Some believe her to be a woman who was struck by a car and killed outside the gates of the graveyard. While still others have seen the face and heard the diabolical cackling of the spirit of an insane man who is said to stick his head out the gate taunting passerbys. However, one entity that is said to haunt the graveyard caused a stir and a panic among the citizens of London between the years of 1969 throughout 1974. The graveyard was no longer safe to traverse at night because the undead were reported to walk among the graves seeking for a human victim. A vampire or vampires were said to call the infamous Highgate Cemetary home.

The legend of a possible vampire haunting the graveyard started in the winter of 1969. A few nights before Christmas a group of teenagers who had an interest in the occult broke into the cemetary to look for ghosts when one young lad, David Farrant claimed to have seen the tall dark figure of a man with a hungry look that gave off an aura of pure evil and for whatever reason Farrant believed this entity to be that of the undead. Farrant, was so convinced of this he wrote a letter to the Highgate express stating that he believed that the graveyard was home to a vampire after finding the dead bodies of small animals that appeared to have been drained of that oh so vital fluid, blood. The paper printed the letter perhaps as a lark, and one brave soul answered the call to investigate the possibility of vampiric activity in one of London’s largest cemetaries. Enter Sean Manchester, fearless vampire hunter.

Manchester, believed that in the early days of Highgate a group of men from eastern Europe brought the sleeping form of what he termed, “A King Vampire”, and laid him to rest in an unmarked grave. Unfortunately though, Manchester believed, satanists in their attempts to conjure spirits they awoke this dread lord of the undead and he now walked amongst the graves looking for a decent midnight snack. If London needed a competent vampire hunter to deal with this creature, Manchester was certain that he was their man.

In March of 1970, Manchester and several associates including Farrant, broke into the graveyard and went about the business of hunting down this undead spawn of evil. In his 1985, book chronicling the events that transpired at Highgate, “The Highgate Vampire”, Manchester goes into great detail about how he and his associates discovered the empty coffins of what he believed to be the resting place of the vampires and how he and his friends sprinkled holy water and left garlic shavings in the caskets. Manchester, was convinced that such action would keep the vampires from entering their coffins at sun up after a long night of blood sucking and the sun would destroy them. Whether or not this actually worked is somewhat sketchy. However in August of 1970 a body was found that bore all the classic signs of a vampire being whacked by a brave vampire slayer.

On a hot day on August 1, 1970 several police officers found the still smoldering charred remains of a naked headless woman in the churchyard of Highgate. The police were convinced that this poor woman met her fate at the hands of satanists as some kind of blood sacrifice to the devil. Could this woman who appeared to be so mercilessly treated really have been one of the undead slain by Manchester and his cronies? According to the folklore of vampire hunting this corpse that was eight pounds lighter and fried to a crisp bore all the classic signs of a vampire that met it’s fate at the hand’s of slayer. Unfortunately, we will never know.

As if the events at Highgate Cemetray couldn’t get any stranger, they most certainly did. Police discovered Farrant, wandering through the graveyard clutching a crucifix to his chest and carrying a sharpened wooden stake in a deathlike grip in his other hand. Farrant, was arrested and charged with breaking and entering, however when the case went to court, the charges against Farrant were dropped and the young man was free to go. A few days after Farrant’s arrest, Sean Manchester and several of his friends paid a visit to Highgate during the day to search for vampires sleeping in their coffins. An alleged psychic who was along for the ride advised Manchester, that she could feel an evil presence very near and proceeded to point out the grave of a recently deceased woman. Convinced this woman was one of the undead, Manchester prepared to drive a stake through the wicked beings heart to send it along to hell. One of Manchester’s companions, for whatever reason stopped the fearless slayer of the undead from doing such a rash action so instead Manchester, poured holy water over the corpse and closed the lid. A few days later Manchester, claims to have cornered the corpse in the cellar of a nearby home and staked it through the heart. Score one for the good guys.

The vampire scare at Highgate Cemetary finally ran out of steam in the summer of 1974. Farrant was jailed on charges of desecrating graves and being disrespectful to corpses. Farrant, claimed emphatically that he was not responsible for the crimes and blamed satanists. However I’m sure, as were the London coppers, that Farrant believed the sleeping forms of the dead to be the bodies of the undead resting before the sun went down and it was time to once again party. And as for Manchester, well he believed that the vampire menace was now good and over and he returned to a relatively normal life.

So then when it comes to the bizarre events that transpired at Highgate cemetary, what are we to make of it? Was the London graveyard the hunting grounds for a mythical creature of pure evil? Or were these two men caught up in the frenzy of a fanatsy world populated by spooks, specters and ghosts? I don’t know I was not there, however something strange happened. Londoners and visitors alike still claim to see the apparitions of the dead on a daily bases at London’s Highgate Cemetary, but what of the vampire? Well it’s dead because one man was brave enough to kill the beast before things got out of hand (God, I love sarcasm).

Rick E. Hale

t_seeker@hotmail.com