Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
are more masterful portraits by
Gainsborough
, most strikingly the diaphanous
Countess
Howe
, caught up in a bold, almost abstract landscape, plus several by
Reynolds
,
including his whimsical
Venus Chiding Cupid for Learning to Cast Accounts
.
Highgate
Northeast of Hampstead Heath, and fractionally lower than Hampstead (appearances
notwithstanding),
Highgate
lacks the literary cachet of Hampstead, but makes up for it
with London's most famous
cemetery
, resting place of, among others, Karl Marx. It
also retains more of its village origins, especially around
The Grove
, Highgate's finest
row of houses, set back from the road in pairs overlooking the village green, and dating
back to 1685. Their most famous one-time resident, the poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
,
lived at no. 3 from 1816, with a certain Dr Gillman and his wife. With Gillman's help,
Coleridge got his opium addiction under control and enjoyed the healthiest, if not
necessarily the happiest, period of his life, until his death here in 1834.
Coleridge was initially buried in the local college chapel, but in 1961 his remains
were reburied in
St Michael's Church
, in South Grove. Its spire is a landmark, but St
Michael's is much less interesting architecturally than the grandiose, late seventeenth-
century Old Hall next door, or the two tiny ramshackle cottages opposite, built for the
servants of one of the luxurious mansions that once characterized Highgate. Arundel
House, which stood on the site of the Old Hall, was where
Francis Bacon
, the
Renaissance philosopher and statesman, is thought to have died, having caught a chill
while trying to stuff a chicken full of ice for an early experiment in refrigeration.
20
Highgate High Street
Highgate gets its name from the tollgate - the highest in London and the oldest in the
country - that stood where the
Gatehouse
pub now stands on
Highgate High Street
. he
High Street itself, though architecturally pleasing, is packed out with franchises and
estate agents, and marred by heavy tra
c, as is its northern extension, North Road. If
you persevere with North Road, however, you'll pass
Highgate School
, founded in 1565
for the local poor but long since established as an exclusive fee-paying public school,
housed in suitably impressive Victorian buildings. T.S. Eliot was a master here for a
while, and famous poetical alumni, known as Cholmeleians after the founder Sir Roger
Cholmeley, include Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Betjeman.
Highpoint 1 and 2
At the top end of North Road, on the left, are the whitewashed high-rises of
Highpoint
1
and
2
, seminal early essays in modernist architecture designed by Berthold Lubetkin
and his Tecton partnership from the late 1930s. Highpoint 1, the northernmost of the
two blocks, was conceived as workers' housing, with communal roof terraces and a
tearoom. The locals were outraged so Highpoint 2 ended up being luxury apartments,
the caryatids at the entrance a joke at the expense of his anti-modernist critics.
Lubetkin also designed himself a penthouse apartment on the roof in the style of a
Georgian dacha, with views right across London, where he lived until 1955.
Waterlow Park and Lauderdale House
Park
Daily dawn to dusk • Free •
W
waterlowpark.org.uk
Lauderdale House
Wed-Fri 11am-4pm, Sat 1.30-5pm, Sun 10am-5pm •
Free
Café
Tues-Sun 9am-5pm •
T
020 8348 8716,
W
lauderdalehouse.org.uk •
!
Archway
To the west of Highgate Hill lies
Waterlow Park
, named after Sydney Waterlow, who
donated it in 1889 as “a garden for the gardenless”. Waterlow also bequeathed
Lauderdale House
,
a much-altered sixteenth-century building, on the eastern edge of
the park, which is thought to have been occupied at one time by Nell Gwynne and her
infant son. The house stages live performances, puts on art exhibitions and is also home
to a decent
café
that spills out into the terraced gardens. The park itself, occupying a
