The Highgate Vampire

 Over the past 37 years, many popular books on ghosts have mentioned a vampire whichpurportedly haunted Highgate Cemetery in the early 1970s. The growth of its reputation is afascinating example of urbanlegend-building, which can be traced through contemporary mediareports and subsequent books by two participants, Sean Manchester and David Farrant.

The Highgate Cemetery is an old Victorian-style cemetery located on the beautiful NorthLondon hill site where 165,000 people are spread over 37 acres. It is rumoured to have beenthe source of inspiration for the famous scene of the cemetery in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'.

Sean Manchester,self-proclaimed vampire hunter and then President of The British OccultSociety , relates in hisautobiographical 'The Highgate Vampire' . The whole affair started when a pair of female teenage students from La Sainte UnionConvent saw what they described as graves opening and bodies rising in the north gate

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section.

On 21 December 1969 another student, David Farrant, decided to spend the night there,according to his account written in 1991. In a letter to the Hampstead and Highgate Expresson 6 February 1970, he wrote that when passing the cemetery on 24 December 1969 he hadglimpsed "a grey figure", which he considered to be supernatural, and asked ifothers had seen anything similar. On the 13th, several people replied, describing a variety ofghosts said to haunt the cemetery or Swains Lane besides.

The description of these ghosts included a tall man in a hat, a spectral cyclist, a woman in white, a face glaring through the bars of a gate, a figure wading into a pond, a pale gliding form,bells ringing, and voices calling. Hardly two correspondents gave the same story, a commonfeature in genuine folk traditions about eerie places.

A second local man, Sean Manchester, was just as fired as Farrant to identify and eliminatewhat he and Farrant believed was a paranormal creature in the cemetery. The Hampstead andHighgate Express reported him on 27 February 1970 as saying that he believed that 'a KingVampire of the Undead', a medieval nobleman who had practised black magic in medievalWallachia, had been brought to England in a coffin in the early eighteenth century, by followerswho bought a house for him in the West End and later leased the home of Sir William Ashurst(Lord Mayor of London in 1694) on the site that later became Highgate Cemetery.

Manchester claimed that modern Satanists had roused him. He said the right thing to do wouldbe to stake the vampire's body, and then behead and burn it, but regrettably this wouldnowadays be illegal. The paper headlined this: 'Does a Wampyr walk in Highgate?'

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Later, Manchester, which public profile rose significantly, claimed to have been contacted by Elizabeth Wojdyla, one of the two convent girls who sought his help because she has anaemiaand nightmares about an animalistic man outside her window. Manchester asserts that hecured her by creating a protective shield with such items as garlic, salt and silver crucifix. Hewas also contacted by a woman named Anne on behalf of her sister, pseudonymously namedLuisa, who had two pin-pricks on her neck and a compulsion to visit Highgate cemetery whilesleepwalking.

The ensuing publicity was enhanced by a growing rivalry between Farrant and Manchester,each claiming to be the one to expel or destroy the vampire. Manchester declared to the pressthat he would hold an 'official' vampire hunt on Friday 13 March.  2 hours after ITV broadcastedinterviews with both Manchester and Farrant, a mob of 'hunters' from all over London and beyond fenced over gates and walls into the locked cemetery, forcing police to intervene.

These freelancers included rival vampire hunter David Farrant, John Pope, (who in 1973 triedto summon the spirit of Count Dracula with a magic ceremony in his hotel room); a historyteacher propitiously named Alan Blood; and a local resident named Anthony Robinson, whoinsisted he heard a high-pitched noise and saw a grey shape during the proceedings.

In later years, Manchester wrote his own account of his deads that night (The HighgateVampire 1985; 2nd rev. ed. 1991). According to his narrative, he and some companionsentered the cemetery, unobserved by the police, via the damaged railings of an adjoiningchurchyard, and tried to open the door of one particular catacomb to which a psychicsleepwalking girl had previously led him; but unable to open the massive door, Manchester asked his associates to lower him in with a rope to the columbarium where he found threeempty coffins. Quickly, he purified them with salt, garlic and holy water against to prevent fromthe possible return of any resident vampires.

This affair escalated in August 1970, when the charred and headless female body of murdered victim was found not far from the catacomb. The police suspected that it had been used inblack magic. Soon after this incident, there was a noticeable surge in both Farrant's andManchester's activities.

Farrant was found by police in the churchyard beside Highgate Cemetery one night in August,carrying a crucifix and a wooden stake. He was arrested, but when the case came to court itwas dismissed.

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A few days later Manchester returned to Highgate Cemetery, but in the daytime, when visitsare allowed. He claimed in his book (neither press nor police were present) that this time heand his companions did succeed in forcing open, inch by inch, the heavy and rusty iron doorsof the family vault to find out that one of three empty coffins was missing.

Led by Lusia as a psychic link, he then broke into the catacomb nearest where this woman'sbody had been discovered.

There he found an extra coffin within which, even more remarkably, was a vampire, with clottedgore in the corners of its mouth and the complexion of a three-day-old corpse. He was about todrive a stake through the body it contained when a companion persuaded him to desist.Reluctantly, he shut the coffin, put garlic and incense in the vault, and came out from it. The

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vault was then bricked up at his request after numerous safeguards to neutralize the vampirewere installed. During the next few months dead animals (mainly mutilated foxes and cats) continued toappear in Waterslow Park, and an escaped mental patient was found wandering the cemeterycovered in his own blood.

Farrant was jailed in 1974 for damaging memorials and interfering with dead remains inHighgate Cemetery -- vandalism and desecration which he insisted had been caused bySatanists, not him. In 1975 Manchester wrote a chapter about it in a book edited by PeterUnderwood, a well-known popular writer on ghost lore. Three years later, in 1977, Manchester along with his two assistants, claimed to havediscovered a vampiric corpse (he implies that it was the same one) in the cellar of a supposedlyhaunted house situated at the corner of Crescent Road and Avenue Road in Crouch End, NorthLondon.

According to Manchester, the trio had to withstand mysteriously destroyed equipment,inexplicable noises, suddenly mouldy food and being trapped inside their car by a terrifying evilforce. But this time, Manchester gave no chance to the creature, driving a stake through hisheart, and dragging the coffin out into the yard, where they cremated the viscous slime left afterthe vampire’s body degenerated. Since, there have been no more strange happenings in the Highgate cemetery.

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Did the Highgate Vampire ever exist ?

Unfortunately, there is little evidence and testimonies from trustworthy sources. As to proof, there are many photographs in Manchester's books and other publications, including onepurporting to be the Highgate Vampire as it began to decompose. But technically aware mindsare rarely convinced by photos.

The Friends of Highgate have denied that Manchester's activities were ever given anycredence, much less that any action was taken as a result of his raves when asked about thewall that was built then pulled down at the entrance of the catacomb.

Moreover, the story seems too good to be true, full of melodramatic details mirroring theDracula mythos: the sleepwalking girl; the vampire transported to England in a coffin; acoffined corpse 'gorged and stinking with the life-blood of others', with fangs and burning eyes;his own role as a Van Helsing figure.

The feud between Manchester and Farrant remains vigorous to this day; each claims to be acompetent exorcist and successful vampire killer; each pours scorn on the other's allegedexpertise.

Both have published books about the Highgate events, in every medium available, eachdenying the role and somehow contradicting the other one. They continue to investigateparanormal events (Manchester found another vampire around Robin Hood's Grave atKirklees, Yorkshire).

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