Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery was one of the earliest privately run garden cemeteries in England. Until the 19th century most burials had taken place in Anglican churchyards, but by the 1820s there had become so overcrowded and unsanitary that a new solution had to be found. Birth and mortality escalated and the Industrial Revolution increased the migration from rural areas towards the cities. For instance, London had slightly below 1 million people, in 1801. However, by 1841, the population had doubled already. The daily death rate was 125 people. Furthermore, the 1831 epidemic of cholera struck in, resulting in excessive deaths. 

''Body snatching'' was another major concern

Entrepreneurial businessmen were quick to offer attractive commercial solutions to the problems of burying London's dead. Highgate Cemetery was the flagship project of the London Cemetery Company, a joint-stock company founded by Stephen Geary (1797-1854), a prominent architect and entrepreneur who was known for a much-derided monument of George IV erected in Gray's Inn Road. The cemetery was the third of London's great commercial cemeteries, after Kensal Green in 1833 and West Norwood in 1837. The London Cemetery Company paid £3,500 for the elevated 17-acre (7 ha) site on the slopes of Highgate Hill and calculated that there was room for 30,000 graves. 

Highgate (East) Cemetery 

On 20 May 1839, the cemetery was consecrated for the use of Church of England members by the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Charles James Blomfield. Highgate Cemetery is divided in two: The West Cemetery and the East Cemetery. The western part has the Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon and is characterized by elaborate feature tombs, vaults and winding paths into hillsides.

Entrance to the Egyptian Avenue 

Circle of Lebanon

In the East Cemetery many famous and prominent people are buried; the most famous of which is arguably that of Karl Marx. 

Tomb of Karl Marx

Additionally, there are 318 graves of the Commonwealth service personnel, 259 being from the First World War and 59 from the Second World War.