Della Farrant 
This steep and unforgiving lane, practically vertical in places, separates the East and West cemeteries at Highgate. It takes its name from the pig herders who from at least the 1300s used it to drive swine from the higher ground above Highgate down to Smithfields Market. A high stone wall encloses Highgate Cemetery West on … Read more
Number 1 Avenue Road, on the borders of Hornsey, Highgate and Crouch End,will be familiar to many local residents who grew up in the area during the 1960s and 1970s because of its eerie reputation. The neo-gothic mansion was originally erected in 1876, and before the fire which devastated the house in 1969 it was … Read more
Hillcrest has been in the news quite a bit recently because of Haringey Council’s decision not to carry out much needed maintenance work. This has has left parts of the estate despairing of ever receiving vital repairs. But when it was first conceived, the estate was considered a model achievement in the realms of social … Read more
View Larger Map Click and drag to explore the Flask for yourself, thanks to the ingenuity of Glyn, the Flask’s manager. Glyn is dubious about the pub still being haunted, but he pulls a good pint and runs an excellent pub! This bright, clean and cheerful coaching house, which dates from at least the … Read more
A curious passageway of note in Highgate lies slightly to the north west, and beneath, the Hillcrest estate. Now a modernised cut-through between Broadlands and Talbot Roads, Park House Passage takes it name from the mansion of the same name which once stood on the looming bulwarks now occupied by Hillcrest. To the folkloric and … Read more
This prominent mock-tudor building, standing proudly in the centre of Highgate Village, takes its name from the Gate House at which tolls were taken from travellers heading out of London on the Great North Road, through the Bishop of London’s park. The arch, long since demolished, through which stagecoaches used to pass, bridged North Road … Read more
When the Romans came to Britain, they found a land as mysterious and strange as darkest Africa was to the Victorians. Standing stones in the landscape, dreary and cold and with superstitious people who looked nothing like them, and had very odd religious practices. This was the land of the ghost story, of monsters and … Read more
This article, which I wrote quite some time back, is probably mostly whimsy. But it does include some fun contemporary sources. Were the Highgate Vampire and Spring Heeled Jack one and the same? Definitely not. Were (or are) they in any way of the same supernatural origin? Probably not, although I suppose that they COULD … Read more
It is not intended to point out the tortuous directions of Hagbush-lane; for the chief object of this notice is to excite the reader to one of the pleasantest walks he can imagine, and to tax his ingenuity to the discovery of the route the road takes. This, the ancient north road, comes into … Read more