I visited Highgate Cemetery back in April. Like so many people, I expected to be struck by the architecture. The monuments. The famous names. The Egyptian Avenue. The towering mausoleums and elaborate tombs. And, of course, I was.
But that wasn't what stayed with me. What I remember most was the peace.
Not simply the quietness of the place. There was something deeper than that. A sense of rest. Of people being remembered. Of lives being acknowledged. And as I walked through Highgate, surrounded by extraordinary monuments built to commemorate the dead, a question began to form.
Is a peaceful death, in some ways, a privilege?
FEELING: PEACE
Highgate felt peaceful to me. This is perhaps an unusual thing to say about a cemetery so associated with death, Victorian mourning and Gothic architecture. But beneath all of that, what I felt was peace.
The grounds are beautiful. Trees grow around the graves. Nature has slowly woven itself around the monuments. There is space to walk. Space to pause. And everywhere are signs that, for many of the people buried there, someone wanted their death to be remembered.
Their names were carved into stone. Their families built monuments. Some created family vaults. Some paid for elaborate memorials designed to endure.
Standing there, I found myself wondering whether all of that meant something beyond what we can physically see. Not just, Who could afford the biggest tomb? But, What did it mean to know that you would be cared for in death?
RESEARCHING: HIGHGATE AND STATUS
Highgate Cemetery opened in 1839 as one of London's great new Victorian commercial cemeteries. It was created at a time when London's older churchyards were overcrowded and increasingly associated with poor and often unsanitary burial conditions. But Highgate wasn't simply a solution to a public health problem, it was also a business, and it became fashionable.
The cemetery quickly attracted wealthy, powerful and influential Londoners, while its landscape, architecture and monuments reflected the social world of Victorian Britain. Highgate became one of the capital's most prestigious places to be buried. Money shaped death here. The ability to purchase a burial plot. The choice of location. A grave or a vault. The size and design of a monument. The ability to pay for a memorial that would remain.
Research into Highgate's Terrace Catacombs has found that the people buried there were largely a prosperous and socially similar group. Even in death, society had its hierarchies. And that is something I couldn't stop thinking about. Because what happened to you in death could depend enormously on what you had in life.
A BEAUTIFUL DEATH
At Highgate, death could be surrounded by beauty. There were landscaped paths and trees. Elaborate architecture. Mausoleums. Family vaults. Names preserved in stone. A place for relatives to return to. A sense that death had been marked. That it mattered.
For many Victorian families, an elaborate monument was not simply decoration. It was a statement of remembrance, status and the desire for a person's memory to endure. The cemetery itself was designed as a picturesque landscape as well as a burial place. And this brought me back to the feeling of peace. Could peace be connected, at least in part, to knowing that you mattered?
That you had been witnessed, mourned, named, remembered, laid to rest somewhere chosen with care. I don't know. But my work has made me think about the question differently.
THE SPIRITS WHO DIDN'T FEEL WORTHY
In my psychopomp work, I have supported spirits whose experiences felt very different. Spirits who, in my understanding of those encounters, had not received what they perceived as a proper burial. Some had died in circumstances where they felt forgotten. Some seemed deeply connected to poverty, hardship or the belief that they had not mattered in life. And what has struck me is that, sometimes, the story they appear to hold isn't simply,“I am dead.” It is, “I don't deserve to go.” Or “This is where I belong.” Or “Nobody came for me.”
These are my experiences and interpretations through spirit work. They aren't historical evidence, and I can't claim to know exactly what happens to every person after death. But the encounters have made me consider something important. Perhaps the stories we tell ourselves in life don't automatically disappear.
If someone spent their life being told — directly or indirectly — that they were poor, insignificant, unwanted or unworthy, what happens to those beliefs at the threshold of death? And if someone's burial reflected that same message? Does that belief continue?
THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING MOURNED
This is where Highgate affected me so deeply. Because the people buried there were not all the same, and not every person had a vast fortune or an enormous monument. But the cemetery itself was built around an idea of a different kind of death. A death with space. A death with ceremony. A death with landscape and architecture. A death that could be visited. A death that could be remembered. And historically, access to those things was not equal.
The poor often had far fewer choices about what happened to their bodies after death. Burial could be shaped by money, parish provision, overcrowding and circumstance. The wealthy could purchase permanence. They could buy a family vault. They could commission a monument. They could ensure their names would remain. There is something uncomfortable about that. Because even remembrance can be shaped by privilege.
DOES A PEACEFUL BURIAL CREATE PEACE?
I don't think it's as simple as saying: A beautiful burial equals a peaceful death.
Nor do I believe that someone buried without wealth, ceremony or an elaborate grave is somehow less worthy of peace. Absolutely not. But I do wonder whether the experience surrounding death matters. To the dying. To the family. To the community. And perhaps, in ways we don't fully understand, to the person who has died.
There is something profoundly human about wanting to mark a death. To wash the body. To sit beside someone. To pray. To sing. To bury. To burn. To mourn. To speak their name.
Ritual tells us, this life mattered, this person belonged somewhere, they will be remembered.
And perhaps that is part of what I felt at Highgate. Not simply the peace of the dead. But the peace created by generations of remembrance.
QUESTIONING
Walking through Highgate, I found myself asking questions I didn't expect.
Is there a privilege in being able to die surrounded by care?
Is there a privilege in having your death marked with ritual and ceremony?
Does being remembered change something?
What happens when someone dies believing they were unworthy in life?
And: How can we make sure that death does not become another place where human worth is measured by money?
Because this is perhaps the most important thing I have learned through my work. Worthiness isn't something we earn.
Not in life. Not in death. Not through money. Not through status. Not through the size of the monument left behind. The person buried beneath an extraordinary mausoleum and the person buried without anyone knowing their name are equally worthy of peace.
But history hasn't always treated them that way. And perhaps that is why places like Highgate stay with me. They are beautiful. But they also reveal something about us. About what we value. Who we remember. Who can afford to be remembered. And what we believe a “good death” should look like.
WHAT HIGHGATE LEFT ME WITH
I went to Highgate expecting history, I found beauty, I found silence and I found peace. But beneath that peace was a question I haven't been able to put down since.
How much of a peaceful death is privilege?
Not because peace can be bought. I don't believe it can. But because care can be withheld. Dignity can be denied. Burial can be unequal. And remembrance has, throughout history, often belonged more easily to those who had money, status and people left behind to speak their names.
Perhaps the most radical thing we can remember is this:
Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.
Everyone deserves to be mourned. Everyone deserves to be remembered. And, whatever lies beyond this life, I believe everyone is worthy of peace.
Feeling.
Researching.
Questioning.
And asking what our treatment of the dead tells us about how we value the living.