The Legend of the Highgate Vampire

This is the story of one of the silliest manhunts in human history.  Maybe you read about it, or rather, what they let you read about it. Probably as some minor item, buried somewhere in a back page. However, what happened at Highgate Cemetery, between December 24th 1969 to November 23rd 1974, was so incredible, that to this day, the facts have been suppressed in a massive effort to save political careers from disaster, and high-ranking police officers from embarassment.

So, when you have finished this bizarre account, judge for yourself its believability... And then try to tell yourself, wherever you may be... It couldn't possibly happen now...

Do you believe in vampires, little boy?  And if they really did exist, where would they live?  A big city would be an ideal spot to rip out the throats of hot blondes. Lots of transients. Lots of victims. Lots and lots of hot blondes. And where would Nosferatu do some R&R?  How about Highgate Cemetery in North London?

Built in 1839, Highgate Cemetery is a vast Gothic plot with 53,000 graves and ornate tombs (Karl Marx being one of them.) Back in the late 1960s, the council-funded cemetery fell into disrepair, and this coincided with a New Age resurgence of interest in the occult. Cue hippies galore, armed with bells, books and candles, who descended on the cemetery to perform ritual magick in the dead of night.

It was at this time that David Farrant, a 24-year-old shop owner and occult dabbler, witnessed something beyond the realms of his own experience: a grey phantom with piercing red eyes at the gates of Highgate Cemetery. It was Swains Lane, Christmas Eve, 1969, and this wasn't some cosy ghost straight outta Charles Dickens. Big. Strong. Malevolent and palpably evil. After 3 ghosty encounters on Swains Lane, Farrant's interest was sparked, what supernatural skullduggery was going on down at Highgate Cemetery?

Farrant had ample reason to suspect that the site was being used by dirty assed hippies for ritual magick. A dozen foxes were found dead in the area, mysteriously drained of blood. Was a suction device used? What could have made such wounds? There was no logical explanation and the cause of death was undetermined. The officials didn't want to cause a panic. Bad for the police. Bad for the locals. And it's bad for business. Information may have been withheld but everyone in Highgate knew what was going down. Fetid hippies were up to no good. As usual.

Nonetheless, word circulated that a "vampire" was the true culprit, not some unemployed longhairs on LSD. Poor Farrant. He had started off as an occult investigator and ended up a "vampire hunter", which made him look an out-and-out kook. Still, it was a good enough story for the Press to get hold of. 

But this was a tale of two hippies. The other mophead in this story is Sean Manchester, who firmly believed that Highgate Cemetery contained the tomb of the "king vampire". Holy fool Manchester, however, was a fruit and nutcase; one who was convinced that Dracula, the novel by Bram Stoker, was gospel, not a work of fiction. Nonetheless, Manchester insisted that "a king of the vampire undead" was buried in Highgate. Not quite Count Dracula, maybe a second cousin, twice removed. According to Manchester, the target was a Romanian aristocrat who had been transported to England by Johnny Alucard in the 18th Century. The fearless vampire killers vs Bela Lugosi at Highgate Cemetery. Screwball Hammer Horror Movie stuff. The Press lapped it up. As they would. 

 The situation went batshit bonkers on March 13th 1970. UK's Thames TV aired a special on the bizarre events at the Victorian-era cemetery. On March 14th, hundreds of leery youths gatecrashed the police cordon about the decaying plots to hunt down the so-called vampire. In the process, several tombs were opened, damaged, vandalized and desecrated, resulting in thousands of Pounds worth of damage to plots, vaults and catacombs. Who was behind it? Satanists? Vampires? No, unfortunately. Just bored teenagers out for kicks and other unlawful activities. 

But what about that "King Vampire" from Romania? Manchester tracked down his bloodsucker, who, it transpired, had been laying low in Crouch End all-of-this-time. It was AD 1973. Manchester drove a stake into its heart and that was that. Case closed. Or was it? When it comes to the Highgate Vampire, one should leave any reasonable explanations at the threshold. For almost 50 years, Farrant and Manchester sparred over the true narrative of the events at Highgate Cemetery. Soon after Manchester's alleged kill, in 1973, both men agreed to a "magical duel" on Parliament Hill in Hampstead. Unable to summon media outlets, or any other dark satanic forces, they rained it off. 

This didn't stop the Halloween ghost hunts at Highgate Cemetery. Between 1970 and 1974, mobs of teens and cranks would assemble at the cemetery with homemade stakes for midnight sabbaths and a possible glimpse of the bloodsucking Highgate Vampire. It was around that time, in 1974, that Farrant was convicted of grave desecration and sending voodoo dolls to "put the mark of death" on his arresting officers. Up in the dock at the Old Bailey, the police claimed that Farrant and his nude followers had lifted a skeleton out of a coffin and placed it in the unlocked car of a local resident. Farrant countered: children pranksters were the true culprits. The Judge didn't buy it. Farrant was sentenced to 4-years in prison. 

But this ripping yarn would haunt subsequent decades. Manchester self-published The Highgate Vampire in 1985; Farrant, keen to manitain a grip on the narrative after 2 years in prison, followed suit with Beyond The Highgate Vampire in 1991. But this much was obvious. The investigation was a saga of rivals, the feud between the two men being the dynamic that kept the legend alive. Manchester stuck to his story, whilst Farrant rejected the vampire theory for an evil presence that had been stirred into life by hippies dabbling in the occult. Case closed. Nowadays, sightings of the "Highgate Vampire" are few and far between. Graveyards are haunted, maybe. By expat vampires from Romania?  Most definitely not.