Ghoul among the gravestones
Eash issue we investigate some famously ghostly places. Here we take a look at Highgate Cemetery in north London
It’s one of the planet’s most famous phantoms. The sensational story of the creepy ghoul dubbed the Highgate Vampire has gripped the world ever since it first hit the headlines more than 50 years ago.
Opened in 1839, there have been reports of spooky sightings in leafy Highgate Cemetery in north London, since Victorian times.
The otherworldly activity appeared to step up in the late 1960s, when locals began telling stories of a creepy entity lurking in the cemetery, where 170,000 people are estimated to be buried in around 50,000 graves.
One eyewitness said she was walking her dog past the cemetery gates late one night when she saw a tall, dark figure with glowing red eyes floating towards her. Another claimed he’d been hypnotised by a similar-looking spectre which had materialised out of the cemetery wall.
Intrigued by the hair-raising sightings, paranormal investigator David Farrant visited the cemetery late one night in December 1967.
He said: ‘As I passed the top gate of Highgate Cemetery, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. I looked around and saw a tall figure, about seven feet tall. I couldn’t tell but it was almost as if it was floating above the ground. I saw its face, or rather I saw two points of intense red light which I took to be its eyes. ‘
At first, I thought it was someone dressed up as a vampire but the area turned icy cold. It was almost as if I’d stepped into a refrigerator.’
Farrant wrote a letter to local paper the Hampstead & Highgate Express describing his encounter with the spooky entity. After the letter was published in February 1970, several readers came forward to say they too had seen a creepy apparition in the graveyard. Reports also began to surface of dead foxes drained of blood regularly being found there.
Farrant suggested a group of devil worshippers conducting their black magic rites in one of the cemetery’s ornate vaults had awakened a dark entity.
Meanwhile, another paranormal investigator Sean Manchester announced the creature was in fact a ‘King Vampire’ who had visited victims in their beds at night, including one local woman called Elizabeth, who was left with two red marks like pinpricks on her neck.
A media frenzy ensued, with the case attracting
