Haunted Highgate by Della Farrant

Author:Della Farrant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750958745
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

A ‘Mad Old Woman’ Searching among the Graves

There is, however, one ghost who seems to be solely associated with the East Cemetery.

This spectral female also seems to have entered the printed pantheon of Highgate’s legends courtesy of Peter Underwood. Again writing in Haunted London, Underwood alleges to have talked with ‘two people who claim to have seen this ghost from different viewpoints at the same time, but always the fast-moving figure disappears from view before it can be closely studied and it always eludes those who try to follow it’. He continues: ‘The ghost is thought to be an old and mad woman whose children were buried here after she had murdered them, and now her sad and restless spirit seeks the graves of those she harmed but really loved.’

Descriptions of this ghost, with her ‘thin hair streaming behind her as she passes swiftly among the mouldering tombs’, vary slightly in retellings, but an element which never alters is her association with children who at some time were in her care and who met with foul play. Underwood’s report does not furnish the reader with any clues as to how the witnesses, or indeed Underwood himself, were aware of the ‘mad old woman’s’ purported crimes. If there is any foundation to Underwood’s report, a then extant oral tradition may explain this. There are two long-forgotten and extremely macabre incidents from Highgate’s hidden history which might in turn shed light on this folk tale’s origins. The first came to public attention on 8 January 1845. As the Morning Chronicle reported:

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