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I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    From Atlas Obscura’s ‘31 Days of Halloween’ feature… Today we are inspired by one of London’s most famous cemeteries and a bizarre period in its history, when it became the stage for dueling magicians, a roving vampire, and mobs of stake-carrying “vampire hunters.” Welcome to Highgate Cemetery in the 1970s. For a long time, anyone who was anyone wanted to be buried in London’s fashionable Highgate Cemetery. Filled with the famous dead - Marx the most famous among them - Highgate is built in the classic Victorian style. (Think weeping angels.) But by the 1940s, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair and become overgrown and covered in vines giving it an iconic “haunted” look. (Helped no doubt by the fact that a number of Hammer Horror films were shot here in the 1960s.) But it was in the 1970s that the cemetery turned into the backdrop for a truly bizarre scene, involving dueling magicians, hordes of stake carrying vampire hunters, and left a trail of unearthed bodies in its wake… Click the photo to read the full story…

    From Atlas Obscura’s ‘31 Days of Halloween’ feature…

    Today we are inspired by one of London’s most famous cemeteries and a bizarre period in its history, when it became the stage for dueling magicians, a roving vampire, and mobs of stake-carrying “vampire hunters.” Welcome to Highgate Cemetery in the 1970s.

    For a long time, anyone who was anyone wanted to be buried in London’s fashionable Highgate Cemetery. Filled with the famous dead - Marx the most famous among them - Highgate is built in the classic Victorian style. (Think weeping angels.)

    But by the 1940s, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair and become overgrown and covered in vines giving it an iconic “haunted” look. (Helped no doubt by the fact that a number of Hammer Horror films were shot here in the 1960s.) But it was in the 1970s that the cemetery turned into the backdrop for a truly bizarre scene, involving dueling magicians, hordes of stake carrying vampire hunters, and left a trail of unearthed bodies in its wake…

    Click the photo to read the full story…