Feelings of panic after visiting Highgate Cemetery

[Therunecaster]

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?

Not for 20 years. Are some of the ancient graves still half open? Beautiful place though

Because that’s ok. It’s happened to everyone who’s ever lived. Because eternal life like with Swift’s Struldbruggs is a terrible idea.

Have you been to Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris? I got locked in one evening, that was an experience.

I adore highgate, and if there is still space when I go I'd love to be buried there, costs a bit c£18K, but its in my will to do first if space available!

I love the miniature architecture of the mausoleums and catacombs - bit more classy than direct cremation!

What happened 😱

I went on a guided walk with my old workplace as part of an away day that included walking through a similar cemetery in London. This was on a bright summers day with plenty of people around and yet I had an overwhelming sense of not being comfortable, almost overwhelmed by it all. I do not believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, I don’t believe that anyone in the afterlife comes back to deliberately scare or spook someone, but I think it’s normal to sometimes feel an overwhelming sense of what has passed in places like this.

Try and take comfort that nothing there will have been trying to scare you. It is likely an indication that you are an empathetic person who picks up on energy, not even necessarily that of any afterlife, just a sense of the life that has passed. Try and think of it as a good thing about yourself, that you are able to sit with this feeling and acknowledge that you are able to feel an energy that not everyone is capable (or interested) in experiencing.

This one is fantastic to visit when open

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilmorey_Mausoleum

Its a one off mausoleum in a housing estate, the big house it belonged to having long gone, stunning little building in the neo-egyptian style with yellow glass star shaped windows in the roof.

It was built by a chap for him and his mistress, who lie in fabulous velvet covered caskets with gilded brass decoration the wife is buried outside in a hole!

I remember Abney Park as being very cruise-y towards evening…

The ghost of Marx haunts us all

Years ago I took a group of year 10s to Highgate, we were stood looking a Karls big bronze bust, and our art teacher, not the brightest, who was on the trip blurted out "he doesn't look a very funny chap considering all those funny films he made with his brothers"😂

I love it there, and find the total opposite, really serene and peaceful, it's my favourite place in London. It must be horrible to have the feelings you do, certainly other places have made me feel like that. I hate Avebury.

You should visit the Roman catacombs that really leaves you feeling weird, like death reaching back thousands of years.

I love Avebury. West Kennett Barrow is my favourite place on earth. It's strange isn't it how some places get under our skin

@RavelTrioyou can not want to live forever, yet still find this unnerving. I adore cemeteries; the peace, relatively few people (above ground at least!) and tonnes of squirrels, but can see the visual of skulls, artifacts and things like that being disturbing.

I thought you were going to say you looked around and screamed like that woman at the Sistine Chapel. 😂

Never been to Highgate, but other cemeteries and graveyards I've visited have a similar feeling. Very atmospheric. I get a similar thing going into old churches, particularly peaceful rural ones I might come across on long country walks. Something about the timelessness of going in, all the people that have gone before, all the emotions that have happened, and the graves or building just quietly absorbing it all.

I always wanted to visit after reading her fearful symmetry https://www.amazon.co.uk/Her-Fearful-Symmetry-Audrey-Niffenegger/dp/0099524171 great book but I still haven’t been !

I went there 30 years ago. I don't remember it very well but I don't remember feeling woo.
How did you escape?

I live near West Norwood cemetery. That is definitely worth a visit. I spend some much needed quiet time at lunch there during the warmer months!

A lot of my family are buried there. I quite like it. But I feel connected to it. A lovely wilderness island in a urban area too..

I go to visit my parents graves whenever I visit my home town but I can never understand why anyone would want to visit the graves of strangers let alone half open graves. To me they are best left in horror movies.

Thank you for saying that
I'm glad it's not just me who feels that way

@Isometimeswonder that sounds like quite a story?

@Therunecaster sorry it's troubling you. That specific place, is it because of the little girl who died?

I've only been to Highgate Cemetery once. I found it interesting. But it's such a tourist spot, I didn't feel much else. It was before George Michael died.

I left London three years ago. Hampstead and Highgate are the only two areas that I miss. The streets around the cemetery are really nice.

At one stage, the local cemetery was the only place I could find peace and quiet! I did not live in a good part.

I went there on a Sunny day and felt uncomfortable, and driving towards Avebury I had to make my husband turn back, sense of malevolence

@EmeraldRoulette I think it was partly because I was with my 'little' girl who was about to set of for Uni and the intrusiveness of peeping through the hatch to see the grave. Made me think about my child's death. We had just come out of the catacombs which absolutely felt oppressive and voyeuristic. Coffins exposed and rotting

I've been a couple of times and simply found it atmospheric. But I totally understand others having a different experience.

But I enjoy visiting cemeteries abroad, especially in what used to be the colonies. They're often very sad, because everyone died so young, and often whole families succumbed to tropical diseases. But I kind of feel that they deserve someone from 'home' acknowledging their story life story. And the headstones usually carry very long and sentimental tributes.
They're also maintained with great respect, I find.

But you may find me weird!

I'm not woo but I had an unsettling twinge at my local cemetery. Walked past all the recent graves fine then got the heebie jeebies near the old unkempt graves.