Highgate

Highgate
Highgate seen from Hampstead Heath
Highgate  Highgate shown within Greater London
OS grid reference
London borough	Camden
	Haringey
	Islington
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	N6
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
EU Parliament	London
UK Parliament	Holborn and St Pancras
London Assembly	Barnet and Camden
	Enfield and Haringey
	North East
List of places UK England London

Highgate ( or ) is a suburban area of north London at the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath, 4.5 miles (7.2 km) north north-west of Charing Cross.

Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live.^[1] It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character.

Until late Victorian times it was a distinct village outside London, sitting astride the main road to the north. The area retains many green expanses including the eastern part of Hampstead Heath, three ancient woods,^[2] Waterlow Park and the eastern-facing slopes known as Highgate bowl.

At its centre is Highgate village, a collection of largely

Section 11:	Capital Ring Walking Route	Section 12:
Hendon Park	Highgate	Stoke Newington

Areas of London Central activities zone Bloomsbury City of London wards Holborn Mayfair Paddington Soho Vauxhall Waterloo Westminster Town centre network International centres (2) Knightsbridge West End Metropolitan centres (13) Bromley Croydon Ealing Harrow Hounslow Ilford Kingston Romford Shepherd's Bush Stratford Sutton Uxbridge Wood Green Major centres (35) Angel Barking Bexleyheath Brixton Camden Town Canary Wharf Catford Chiswick Clapham Junction Dalston East Ham Edgware Eltham Enfield Town Fulham Hammersmith Holloway Nags Head Kensington High Street Kilburn King's Road East Lewisham Orpington Peckham Putney Queensway/Westbourne Grove Richmond Southall Streatham Tooting Walthamstow Wandsworth Wembley Whitechapel Wimbledon Woolwich District centres (selected) Acton Beckenham Bethnal Green Brentford Camberwell Canada Water Carshalton Chadwell Heath Chingford Clapham Crystal Palace Coulsdon Cricklewood Dagenham Deptford Dulwich Edmonton Elephant and Castle Erith Feltham Finchley Forest Gate Forest Hill Golders Green Greenwich Harlesden Hampstead Hendon Hornchurch Kentish Town Leyton Mill Hill Mitcham Morden Muswell Hill New Cross New Malden Northwood Notting Hill Penge Pinner Purley Ruislip Sidcup Southgate South Norwood Stoke Newington Surbiton Sydenham Teddington Thamesmead Tolworth Twickenham Tulse Hill Upminster Upper Norwood Wanstead Wealdstone Welling West Hampstead West Norwood Willesden Green Woodford Neighbourhood centres (selected) Abbey Wood Alperton Anerley Barnes Barnsbury Battersea Beckton Bermondsey Bow Brent Cross Brockley Canonbury Charlton Chelsea Chessington Chipping Barnet Chislehurst Clerkenwell Elmers End Gidea Park Gunnersbury Hackbridge Hackney Harold Wood Highams Park Highbury Highgate Hillingdon Hook Holloway Hoxton Ickenham Isle of Dogs Isleworth Islington Kensal Green Lambeth Manor Park Marylebone Mortlake Northolt Nunhead Poplar Roehampton Rotherhithe Seven Kings Seven Sisters Shoreditch Southwark Stepney St Helier Surrey Quays Tottenham Upper Clapton Walworth Wapping West Ham Worcester Park All areas, listed by borough Barking and Dagenham Barnet Bexley Brent Bromley Camden Croydon Ealing Enfield Greenwich Hackney Hammersmith and Fulham Haringey Harrow Havering Hillingdon Hounslow Islington Kensington and Chelsea Kingston upon Thames Lambeth Lewisham Merton Newham Redbridge Richmond upon Thames Southwark Sutton Tower Hamlets Waltham Forest Wandsworth Westminster London Plan, Annex Two: London's Town Centre Network

London Borough of Camden Districts Belsize Park Bloomsbury Brondesbury Camden Town Chalk Farm Covent Garden Cricklewood Dartmouth Park Fitzrovia Fortune Green Frognal Gospel Oak Hampstead Haverstock Highgate Holborn Kentish Town Kilburn Kings Cross Primrose Hill Regent's Park Saffron Hill St Giles St Pancras Somers Town South Hampstead Swiss Cottage Tufnell Park West Hampstead Attractions Ben Uri Gallery Bloomsbury Theatre British Library British Museum BT Tower Camden Arts Centre Dickens House Museum Dominion Theatre Donmar Warehouse Foundling Museum Fenton House Freud Museum Highgate Cemetery Keats House Kenwood House The Jewish Museum Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology Roundhouse Shaftesbury Theatre Sir John Soane's Museum Wellcome Collection West End theatre Street markets Camden Market Queen's Crescent Market Parks and open spaces Bloomsbury Square Hampstead Heath Kilburn Grange Park Lincoln's Inn Fields Phoenix Garden Primrose Hill Regents Park Russell Square Waterlow Park Constituencies Hampstead and Kilburn Holborn and St. Pancras Tube and rail stations Belsize Park Camden Road railway station Camden Town Chalk Farm Chancery Lane Euston Euston railway station Euston Square Finchley Road Finchley Road & Frognal railway station Goodge Street Gospel Oak railway station Hampstead Hampstead Heath railway station Holborn Kentish Town Kentish Town West railway station Kilburn High Road railway station King's Cross St. Pancras London King's Cross railway station Mornington Crescent Russell Square St Pancras railway station South Hampstead railway station Swiss Cottage Tottenham Court Road Warren Street West Hampstead West Hampstead railway station West Hampstead Thameslink railway station Other topics Blue plaques Coat of arms Council Listed buildings Grade I Grade II* People Public art Schools Category

London Borough of Haringey Districts Bounds Green Bowes Park Crouch End Finsbury Park Fortis Green Harringay Highgate Hornsey Manor House Muswell Hill Noel Park Northumberland Park St Ann's Seven Sisters South Tottenham Stroud Green Tottenham (incl. Broadwater Farm and Little Russia) Tottenham Hale West Green Wood Green Attractions Alexandra Palace Bruce Castle Jacksons Lane Markfield Beam Engine White Hart Lane (football stadium) Parks and open spaces Alexandra Park Bruce Castle Park Chestnuts Park Coldfall Wood Downhills Park Down Lane Park Finsbury Park Highgate Wood Hollickwood Park Markfield Park Parkland Walk Priory Park Queen's Wood Railway Fields Constituencies Hornsey and Wood Green Tottenham Tube and railway stations Alexandra Palace Bounds Green Bowes Park Bruce Grove Harringay Harringay Green Lanes Highgate Hornsey Manor House Northumberland Park Seven Sisters South Tottenham Tottenham Hale Turnpike Lane White Hart Lane Wood Green Other topics Coat of arms Council Grade I and II* listed buildings People Public art Schools

• The Highgate Society
• Comprehensive details about Highgate

External links

References

• Hornsey (parish)
• Municipal Borough of Hornsey

See also

• Highgate's historic feel - in particular the gothic atmosphere of its cemetery - has provided the backdrop to a considerable number of films, including Hammer Horror films of the 1970s and, more recently, Shaun of the Dead and Dorian Gray.^[8]
• A famous scene in pantomime is set in Highgate. Dick Whittington and His Cat are characters in an English story adapted to the stage in 1605, which since the 19th century has become one of the most popular pantomime subjects, very loosely based on the historical Richard Whittington, a medieval Lord Mayor of London. Dick, a boy from a poor family in Gloucestershire, walks to London to make his fortune, accompanied by his cat. He meets with little success there. As Dick and cat are making for home, discouraged, by way of Highgate Hill, they hear the Bow Bells from distant London; Dick believes they are sending him a message to "turn again" - and that he will become Lord Mayor of London. They return; Dick makes his fortune and indeed becomes Lord Mayor. The Whittington Hospital on Highgate Hill is named after the story, and a statue of Dick's faithful pet stands nearby.
• "London Song" by Ray Davies: "If you're ever up on Highgate Hill on a clear day, You can see right down to Leicester Square". The cover shoot for the 1971 Kinks album Muswell Hillbillies took place in various locations around Highgate. The back inset on the original album cover showed the band on the traffic island that used to stand on the intersection of Southwood Lane and Castle Yard. The cover for their 1968 album Village Green Preservation Society was photographed on Parliament Hill, with Highgate as the backdrop.
• "Waterlow" by Mott the Hoople, from their 1971 album Wildlife, is a tribute to Highgate's Waterlow Park.
• Rod Stewart sings about his Highgate upbringing in "Highgate Shuffle", from the live album Unplugged... and Seated.
• In the song "Cross-Eyed Mary" by Jethro Tull, the title character is referred to as the "Robin Hood of Highgate".
• The pub tradition of Swearing on the Horns originated in Highgate.
• In Dickens' novel David Copperfield James Steerforth lives in a house at the top of Highgate West Hill.
• In the popular BBC sitcom, Are You Being Served, Mr. Lucas (played by Trevor Bannister) lives in Highgate.
• Un lieu incertain, a book by French novelist Fred Vargas, picks up the urban legend of the "Highgate Vampire".

In popular culture

In 1817 the poet, aesthetic philosopher and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to live in the Highgate home of Dr James Gillman in order to rehabilitate from his desperate opium addiction.^[7] After Dr Gillman built a special wing for the poet, Coleridge lived there for the rest of his life, becoming known as the sage of Highgate. While here some of his most famous poems, though written years earlier, were first published including "Kubla Khan". His literary autobiography, Biographia Literaria, appeared in 1817. His home became a place of pilgrimage for figures such as Carlyle and Emerson. He died there on 25 July 1834 and is buried in the crypt of St Michael's Church. The writer J. B. Priestley subsequently lived in the same house.

Coleridge

Siouxsie and the Banshees' bassist Steven Severin was born and brought up there.

In Victorian times St Mary Magdalene House of Charity in Highgate was a refuge for former prostitutes - "fallen women" - where Christina Rossetti was a volunteer from 1859 to 1870. It may have inspired her best-known poem, Goblin Market.

Peter Sellers lived as a boy in a cottage in Muswell Hill Road, where his mother had moved in order to send him to the Catholic St Aloysius Boys' School in Hornsey Lane.

A blue plaque on a house at the top of North Hill notes that Charles Dickens stayed there in 1832, when he was 20 years old.

Many notable alumni have passed through Highgate School, either Masters or indeed Old Cholmeleians, the name given to old boys of the school. These include T.S. Eliot, who taught the poet laureate John Betjeman there, Gerard Manley Hopkins the poet, the composers John Taverner and John Rutter, John Venn the inventor of Venn diagrams, actor Geoffrey Palmer, Anthony Crosland MP and Labour reformer, and the cabinet minister Charles Clarke.

The MP for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency since 1992 has been Labour's Glenda Jackson. It is now part of the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, formed at the 2010 general election. Lynne Featherstone is the Liberal Democrat MP for the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency, which covers the northern half of Highgate village. The Boundary Commission report of 2003 recommended separating the Camden part of Highgate from the remainder of its present constituency and joining it with Kentish Town and Holborn to the south.

• Adjacent to Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts.
• Between 1930 and 1939, the wife and son of Adolf Hitler's half-brother, Alois, lived in Highgate, before moving to the United States. Bridget and Patrick Hitler lived at 26 Priory Gardens.^[6]
• Leslie Compton, formerly an Arsenal footballer and a Middlesex cricketer, owned a pub in Highgate after he retired from sports.
• Former Newcastle United striker Nile Ranger was born in Highgate.
• Rock star Rod Stewart was born and raised in Highgate.

Jacob Bronowski, Sir Ralph Richardson, Christina Rossetti, Sir Sidney Nolan, Alexander Litvinenko, Malcolm McLaren, Radclyffe Hall and Joseph Wolf.

Notable inhabitants

The case remains unsolved despite being featured heavily in the national press and on BBC TV's Crimewatch programme.^[5]

On Friday 26 August 1988, Michael Williams, a 43-year-old father from Highgate who worked for the Home Office in Pimlico, disappeared whilst travelling back home after an employee social. His body was found at Highgate Wood the next day. His killer has never been found.

Modern notoriety

For details of education in the Haringey portion of Highgate see the London Borough of Haringey article.

Education

The name of the village is commonly ; however, the London Underground in announcements at Highgate tube station uses the alternative pronunciation of , where the final syllable matches the last syllable in "frigate".

Pronunciation

• Highgate Cemetery
• Highgate School
• Highgate Wood
• Jacksons Lane
• Kenwood House
• Highpoint I and II
• Athlone House formally known as Caen Wood Towers - (Home of the RAF Intelligence School 1942-48)
• Archway Bridge
• Furnival House
• St Michael's Church

Highgate is known for its pubs which line the old high street and surrounding streets. Some notable favourites are the Angel, the Flask, the Duke's Head and the Wrestlers.

Places of interest

• Highgate tube station
• Archway tube station

Nearest tube stations

• Archway
• Crouch End
• Dartmouth Park
• East Finchley
• Finchley
• Hampstead
• Holloway
• Hornsey
• Muswell Hill

Nearest places

Transport and locale

Like much of London, Highgate suffered damage during World War II by German air raids. The local tube station was used as a bomb shelter.

Highgate Hill, the steep street linking Archway (traditionally called part of Upper Holloway) and Highgate village, was the route of the first cable car to be built in Europe. It operated between 1884 and 1909.

The area north of the High Street and Hampstead Lane was part of Hornsey parish and also later the Municipal Borough of Hornsey and the seat of that borough's governing body for many years.

Hampstead Lane and Highgate Hill contain the red brick Victorian buildings of Highgate School and its adjacent Chapel of St Michael. The school has played a paramount role in the life of the village and has existed on its site since its founding was permitted by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I in 1565.

In later centuries Highgate was associated with the highwayman Dick Turpin.

Historically, Highgate adjoined the Bishop of London's hunting estate. The bishop kept a toll-house where one of the main northward roads out of London entered his land. A number of pubs sprang up along the route, one of which, the Gatehouse, commemorates the toll-house.

History

The area is divided between three London boroughs: Haringey in the north, Camden in the south and west, and Islington in the south and east. The postal district is N6.

The village is at the top of a hill which provides views across London: it is 446 feet (136 m) above sea level at its highest point.

is buried. Karl Marx in which the Communist philosopher cemetery Victorian buildings. Highgate is also famous for its atmospheric Highpoint's 1930s Berthold Lubetkin and ^[4] arts centre housed in a Grade II listed former church, the Gatehouse Inn dating from 1670Jacksons Lane (1565), Highgate School interspersed with diverse landmarks such as St Michael's Church and steeple, St. Joseph's Church and its green copper dome, [3]