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Original poster

Feelings of panic after visiting Highgate Cemetery

165 replies

Therunecaster · 27/02/2026 22:00

Good evening

I visited Highgate Cemetery last summer and the catacombs have played on my mind ever since. Normally I love a wander round a cemetery but on this occasion it has left me feeling anxious about death. I don't know if it was the catacombs or the mausoleums or just the wildness of it but I wish I hadn't gone. Has anyone else experienced this feeling?

OP posts:
onelumporthree · 27/02/2026 22:18

A couple of my long-ago ancestors are buried there. I've never been though.

Original poster
Therunecaster · 27/02/2026 22:16

@JuliettaCaeserthats it exactly

OP posts:
Splashadolphin · 27/02/2026 22:15

I haven't been there but wandered around one local to me. There are 2 massive graves of 2 teenagers, looks like they might have died in some sort of accident atvthe same time by the references and items left there. It left me feeling deeply sorrowful and overwhelmed so I get where your coming from. Sometimes I think it's also where you are in life, what your going through can affect you in such places more than at other times though. There are family tombs in old cemeteries in France that are also like that. They are enormous and the feeling of death being bigger than you because of the stature of them left me feeling the same.

Original poster
Therunecaster · 27/02/2026 22:15

tripleginandtonic · 27/02/2026 22:11

Are you pregnant?

I'm not but my youngest left home for uni a couple of weeks after we visited the cemetery together and I think it's a combination of that, a transition in life and the place being creepy

OP posts:
JuliettaCaeser · 27/02/2026 22:14

I felt the same after visiting the Paris catacombs. Hundreds of skulls all packed in tightly. Everyone else seemed cheery and fine but it freaked me out. Me my family and all our friends will one day be just those skulls. Why wasn’t anyone else bothered?!

Original poster
Therunecaster · 27/02/2026 22:12

I do feel it had a weird energy / vibe on the older side. I really regret going into the catacombs and looking into the Julius Beer Mausoleum

OP posts:
DarkEyedSailor · 27/02/2026 22:12

@LovesLabradors oh if you get chance you should. It's beautiful.

tripleginandtonic · 27/02/2026 22:11

Are you pregnant?

LovesLabradors · 27/02/2026 22:11

I've sort of wanted to visit ever since it played a big role on one of the JK Rowling Strike books - sounds a really interesting place. I'm not so sure now!
YANBU to feel how you feel.

Willmoris · 27/02/2026 22:10

YABU
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... there are very few people buried in that cemetery than anyone now alive remembers and loved (apart from George Michael, LOL!) - 99.5% of the interments are just history now.
What it is, is a fabulous and very much alive habitat for hundreds of natural species.

DarkEyedSailor · 27/02/2026 22:10

I love Highgate cemetery. I enjoy walking round old cemeteries (I live beside one) but I can see why people wouldn't want to.

ConvolutedCat · 27/02/2026 22:08

I love Highgate Cemetery and find it all quite lovely and calming. But you’re not being unreasonable to feel however you feel!

PrizedPickledPopcorn · 27/02/2026 22:06

Would it help to think that it’s just the epitome of all things ‘death’? Our mythology, psychology, sociology all encapsulated in an almost deliberate stereotype of morbidity. It’s both influenced our expectations, literature and film culture, and been influenced by it.

JacknDiane · 27/02/2026 22:06

Oh, I wont be going there

Cheepcheepcheep · 27/02/2026 22:03

I get it. I have a friend’s sibling buried there and I’ve been a few times. Honestly the whole place gave me the creeps. Lots of ‘energy’ for want of a better term.

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