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?

Places don't really make me panic but some alive people certainly do.

If Highgate gives you the creeps, then Auschwitz certainly will - I couldn’t sleep for 5 nights after visiting .,it’s incredibly well ‘done’ but just so bloody awful looking at man’s inhumanity to man -

It deeply upset me I used to be in tears every time

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Totally understand. I went a few years ago. What got me was the overwhelming, almost tangible silence. Very very weird.

My daughter went to Aushwitz on a school trip. They were at the far end of the site. She and her friend went to the loo. When they came out, everyone had gone and left them!

Where my granny is buried there is a grave right beside it which has the remains of a woman with my exact first, middle and last names and same year of birth. 😱

And?

I was going to ask you what is your relationships with mortality. Did the visit make you confront it in a way you haven't previosly?
But to be honest Highgate has a vibe. No doubt about it. You might be sensitive in that sense.
How about Chislehurst caves though!! That place creeps me out like no other. I would not go back even if someone paid me.

I absolutely love walking around cemeteries, as does my daughter so it's a shared activity. My husband thinks it's morbid, I think 'why would there be memorials if they didn't want people to see them'. However, I do get creeped out sometimes, and often feel like I am being 'watched'.

DH and I walked through Tower Hamlets cemetery 2 weeks ago.

It was an amazing experience that neither of us was really prepared for.

We walked through Tower Hamlets, with the pervasive smell of weed smoke. Past groups of young men, on street corners, with enormous dogs. There was a real feeling of tension, if not underlying threat.
Then through a gate to find ourselves surrounded by an overwhelming feeling of peace.

Such a beautiful place. The only sound was the singing of the birds. It felt like a woodland glade. You'd never guess you were in the middle of the East End.
Then thousands of graves. Crammed in with no real sense of order.

I could have spent hours there, but we were just passing through and had to be somewhere else.

I looked it up later, and apparently there are 44,000 people buried there.

It was closed as a cemetery in the 60s, and has since been a city park.

I love old churches and churchyards. There's a family grave in a village churchyard that ran out of space in the 20th century and it's got so many wild flowers. The grave stones are the traditional grey stone rather than shiny granite.
I once came across a grave in a little country churchyard that said
"Once I stood where thou dost now,
And viewed the dead as thou dost me,
Ere long thou'lt lie as low as I
And others stand and look on thee."
I'd like to visit Highgate cemetary

@Sofamonkey2day Good question. I think it's a combination of things none which take a lot of insight to put together. Last little daughter off to uni so empty nest. I work in an ICB so a year of uncertainty and sadness and turning 50, good friend died. I have this appreciation and realisation that life is short, fragile and unpredictable but so beautiful and filled with opportunities. The chavvy name thread has made me cry every night because my daughter is called Jade. I think it's a beautiful name which I chose because I love it. However I've been chewed to bits about how scornful people are about it. My sister once told me that you don't get many people going to Uni called Jade when she was 6 and I do take some satisfaction that she's at Leeds doing law! My sister would bite her tongue off if she knew I still thought about it, it was a rare thoughtless thing from a much loved sister. Our ICB restructuring is nearly over and I think I'll be ok, the kids are all happy and life is good. Seeing other people get the same melancholic feelings helps make me feel connected and grounded to you wonderful people

I watched David Attenborough's Wild London and they showed Hither Green Cemetery as the trees are absolutely coated with parakeets at sunset.

I am saddened to read of your feelings and hope somehow they can be reduced or overcome.

I visited Highgate Cemetery a few years ago and to be honest it did not leave me with many feelings at all. War graves and those of relatives are the ones that emotionally affect me.

The Island near the gardens - Lindisfarne - is really atmospheric. Its like a Dr Who episode. You can really feel the centuries of history.

Jade is a lovely name. I think of the precious gemstone. I think what your sister said is dated now. I don't think people think like that any more.
Funnily enough people used to say my 21 year old's name was awful and dated when she was young on mumsnet. There was recently a thread about it where people loved it and said it was fresh.

I couldn't ever imagine going to visit such a place. We all know what happened there I don't get why tourists visit.

Yes there's the war graves in France but all the dead's belongings aren't displayed, the battle scenes aren't recreated it is purely a memorial site.

All the pictures you see of people taking selfies at Auschwitz, it's really bizarre imo.

Jade is a lovely name. Sorry about your friend

I’m thinking of visiting with my family in Easter - any tips of other things to do in the area (outdoor type activities). We’d also see the castle

@Aaaaaaaaawwwwwww lots of castles to vist. Bamburgh, Dunstanbrugh and Warkworth are my favourites. Barter books is fab and Billy's boat tours to the Farne Islands is well worth the money. You may even see dolphins and the Orca pod. The copper kettle tea rooms at Bamburgh does a fantastic spread. The crab sandwich is to die for... keeping the threads tone up 🤣

No, quite the opposite. I love Highgate Cemetery and find it very peaceful and beautiful. But I get how you could feel the way you do. It’s not unreasonable by any stretch.

Amazing - thank you!

my contribution is when I visited Bukit Brown cemetery in Singapore I got a really weird feeling, and when I went home my domestic helper was horrified I’d been and asked if I’d brought anyone ‘back’. Freaked me right out. Lots of the graves had been moved to make way for a new highway I believe, and it was controversial, but I didn’t realise that at the time.

I am scared of death and am also fascinated by places like this, but sometimes get a really weird feeling that persists

I find it completely bonkers to compare it to Dachau or Belsen. I've never been to either but - very strange comparison in my view.

@Citrusbergamia lavender fields are well worth a visit. Be prepared for the bees though. My friend was a bit taken aback by that. The poison garden at Alnwick - I went on a busy day and there was a 45 minute queue to get in. It's easier if there's two of you because one of you can wander off and do stuff while the other holds a place in the queue. The very nice security guard did actually let me do that but he checked I was on my own first and then said he'd hold my place. It's very much them making a feature out of it if you know what I mean.

I can't remember who it was, but it's interesting that one poster said she went to Highgate as a child and wouldn't go back. I obviously love it. Of the two areas I'd probably pick Hampstead. But I'd never have enough money to live in either, so it's irrelevant 😂

Oh thank you.

I'm planning to do that this summer - I want to see puffins! I wasn't sure if Chillingworth Castle might be worth a visit as well.