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?

Yes! It's the over crowdedness - it's like you can't escape the over crowdedness in London even in death. It's also 'messy' looking with overgrown bushes and built up graves and the gigantic memorial stones and crosses make it all overbearing.

I went to the Capuchin catacombs in Sicily with my chap. I’m not much given to woo or squeamishness, have sat in on archeological digs and cleaned up bones etc. The Capuchin place is only just underground, with lots of light coming from high up windows, and not particularly spooky. DP was very interested, and read everything slowly and took his time whereas I wandered ahead. I ended up about 100 yds ahead of him and realised there was no one else there, just me and walls of incredibly well preserved bodies, all looking out. The bodies are hanging from the walls and are in their original clothes. The skin is very well preserved and some famous ones look like they are asleep.

Well for no good reason I had to get out and found my legs going faster and faster, and sprinting up the steps to get out and get some air. I gave a very British “oh yes I’m fine” as I shot past DP and then sat outside near a souvenir seller who looked not in the least bit surprised or concerned so it must happen regularly.

It felt voyeuristic and disrespectful and I felt all squirmy all day.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. But what about the ghosts?”

I’ve just googled the Capuchin catacombs @Teenthree and oh my word, what a sight!
I don’t blame you for the swift exit.

I've just googled too - oh my goodness!

I have this. im extremely sensitive to places. im very empathetic. and I ended up having psychosis so don know if that is connected.

I've never been to Highgate but I like to walk round the Necropolis in Glasgow which is a similar age and built for much the same reasons. I find it an evocative place but not frightening at all, it's quite serene. It isn't overgrown like Highgate looks though - a lot of the Necropolis is quite open land, a bit exposed in fact.There are fantastic views over the city and beyond. I wonder if that makes a difference. In some of the photos I found of Highgate I really get the sense of nature taking back over which is somehow simultaneously quite reassuring and disquieting. It looks like it might feel rather claustrophobic. I'd like to visit though, this thread has piqued my interest.

My sister lives near Abney Park and we often walk through to get to Morrison's!

It's a lovely peaceful place - not creepy at all

Abney Park

thats very strange and sick thing to do

I have a feeling like this about lots of places in Italy with relics preserved.

and there is one place in Siena underground where monks used to flagellate themselves and my Dh wanted to stay there a long time but I had to get out - I couldnt get out quick enough. it really disturbed me. later in my life I ahd psychosis so I don know if im very sensitive to things

I've seen a few programmes on the Necropolis - looks fascinating particularly with the views

old cemeteries are amazing places, they force you to consider so many feelings about history and the transience of everything. I love visiting them, but I can see how they are we unsettling.

Highgate is one of the best UK cemeteries for sure.

I love the architecture too. This YouTube Chanel is worth a look if you are fascinated by these places https://youtube.com/@deadgoodwalks?si=ngP5MiBis7_7sfVw

Your mother was / is a monster.

Unbelievable. Sick.

Highgate cemetery and perhaps the whole of Highgate itself does have a bit of a funny energy but instead of being unsettled by it, try and lean into it? I find it a bit campy and fabulous! For a cemetery, there’s quite a lot of witty and amusing graves in Highgate - my favourite is Sally Hunter - hers says ‘LAWYER’ and then underneath ‘should have been a marine biologist’.

Death is just part of life as much as anything else.

I don't like cemeteries at all, they feel like hovering at the edge of things and disquieting, but I love Avebury and find it very peaceful even in the middle of the night.

Oh, I love Highgate Cemetery. It makes me feel the opposite to you, OP. Those who are buried there really get legacy with visitors reading the inscriptions on their graves every day. I did a guided tour, and they said people used to take picnics to the catacombs to sit with their relatives in a positive way. The cemetery was a big attraction at the time, people walked there for pleasure. It was about cherishing family and also keeping them safe at a time when grave robbing was a thing.

Yes, but from Kensal Green not Highgate. Catacombs are places best avoided IMO.

Omg that is horrific like something from a horror film.
Where is the peace amd dignity in that?

I would love to go to Egypt but wouldn't be able to go into the pyramids. I also don't like the way the curators have unwrapped the royal mummies and put them on display.

Death doesn't frighten me and I spent my youth singing in old churches I just don't want to disrespect the dead. I'm also a bit frightened of ghosts!

I have always wanted to visit Highgate and now I want to go even more! But then I have always been a bit of a goth.
I can understand how it would have unsettled you but it was months ago so to still be upset about it makes me think there is something more worrying you x

I also find cemeteries peaceful and beautiful but during the pandemic when I was walking through one with my sister, I felt the same way as you OP.
I saw some of the older graves that were so worn down that you didn’t know the name of the poor soul or when they were born. They were forgotten and had disappeared forever.

It was particularly painful to see that because I was the youngest in a large family of single and childless siblings, I would mourn for them and remember them but who would do the same for me?

I was 35 and single with too much time on my hands due to pandemic unemployment and people were dying everyday.

Luckily, I am a mother now and feel at peace with the future.

I used to be a volunteer gardener and later a tour guide at Highgate Cemetery. I loved it - the calm , the beauty, the mysterious atmosphere, the amazing history.

The only thing that gave me creeps is literally seeing how many kids would die if it wasn't for vaccinations, and that there are people who would willingly return to the times when every family had several children in every generation dead at the early age from preventable illnesses.

I don't feel sad for people buried in places like Highgate as that's just life and part of the victorian business of burial. Though I do sort of feel sad that with modern cremations we don't have places that mark people's lives like older burial sites.

I did feel sad when I saw Douglas Adam's grave as he died so young and was such a great writer.

It’s a cemetery - and a rather grande one at that. It’s not going to be a joyful experience is it?

I think it’s beautiful - but not the kind of place you go for a laugh

I find Highgate interesting to visit too as so many horror films used the site.

I'd recommend Saint Mary's Churchyard, Mortlake. It's completely unremarkable in every way - just a little suburban RC cemetery overlooked by the back windows of terraced houses - apart from the tomb of Sit Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor!) which is in the shape of an Arab tent.