Highgate

Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.

The area is characterised by many green expanses including three ancient woods, a park and a famous cemetery. At its centre is Highgate village, a collection of largely Georgian shops, pubs, restaurants and residential streets, interspersed with diverse landmarks such as Highgate School (1565), the Gatehouse inn dating from 1670 and Berthold Lubetkin's 1930s Highpoint buildings.

The village sits atop a hill which provides views across London, climbing 375 ft above sea level at its highest point.

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

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.

History
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.

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

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 from Queen Elizabeth I in 1565.

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.

Highgate Hill, the steep street linking Archway and Highgate village, was the route of the first cable car to be built in Europe. It operated between 1884 and 1909.

Notable inhabitants
Peter Sellers' mother moved to Muswell Hill Road, in order to send Peter to the Catholic St Aloysius boys' school in Hornsey Lane.

In recent years famous inhabitants have included John James Sainsbury, J. B. Priestley, Stella Gibbons, Yehudi Menuhin (and later Sting who bought Menuhin's old house), Sir Clifford Curzon, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Jacob Bronowski, Stanley Baxter, Mike Skinner, Tariq Ali, Clive Owen, Heath Meek, Geri Halliwell, Bob Hoskins, Cliff Parisi, Ulrika Jonsson, Imre Varadi, Alex Zane, Terry Gilliam, Arthur Boyd, Chris Moyles, Christopher Nolan, George Michael, Jonathan Pryce, Alison Steadman, Paul Nicholas, David Ryan Jordan (Air Traffic), Dizzee Rascal, Marina Diamandis, Tim Pigott-Smith, Heath Robinson, Freddie Highmore, Stephen Gately, Ray Davies (The Kinks) and Victoria Wood.

Highgate Cemetery is the burial place of Karl Marx, Michael Faraday, Douglas Adams, George Eliot, Jacob Bronowski, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Sidney Nolan, Alexander Litvinenko, Malcolm McLaren, and Radclyffe Hall.

Adjacent to the Highgate cemetery is the Holly Lodge Estate, one of only two housing-estates built in the UK for single women; formerly, it was the home and grounds of Baroness Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts. Between 1930 and 1939, the wife and son of Adolf Hitler's half brother, Alois, lived in Highgate; Brigid and her son, Pat, lived at 26 Priory Gardens. Sadie Frost has an office in the village behind the 'LA Fitness' gym. In April 2008, she complained about the noise caused by the classes. Leslie Compton, formerly an Arsenal F.C footballer and a Middlesex cricketer, owned a pub in Highgate after he retired from sports. Newcastle United F.C. striker Nile Ranger was born in Highgate.

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.

Many influential 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 most recently the cabinet minister Charles Clarke.

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.

Coleridge
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 rehab from his desperate opium addiction. 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.

In popular culture

 * 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 movies of the 1970s and, more recently, Shaun of the Dead and Dorian Gray.
 * 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".
 * "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.
 * Nick, a character in Jane Green's "Mr. Maybe" lives in a bedsit in Highgate.

Nearest places

 * Archway
 * Crouch End
 * Dartmouth Park
 * Finchley
 * Hampstead
 * Holloway
 * Hornsey
 * Muswell Hill

Nearest tube stations

 * Highgate tube station
 * Archway tube station

Places of interest
Highgate is known for its pubs which line the old high street and surrounding streets. Some notable favourites are The Angel, the Flask and the Wrestlers.
 * 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 1942-1948)
 * Archway bridge

Pronunciation
The name of the village is commonly, rhyming with "flyweight". An alternative pronunciation, used by the London Underground in announcements at Highgate tube station, is, where the final syllable matches the last syllable in "tag it".

Education

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