2018

TQ2887 : View down Swains Lane

taken 7 years ago, near to Holloway, Islington, England

View down Swains Lane
View down Swains Lane
The steep Swains Lane must be one of the creepiest roads in London as it passes both Highgate West Cemetery and Highgate East Cemetery. This is from near the top of the road with Waterlow Park on the left and Highgate West Cemetery on the right. Highgate East Cemetery is further down the hill on the left beyond Waterlow Park.

Ian Nairn in 1966 in Nairn's London had this to say about Highgate West Cemetery: "There are better reasons for going here than to look at the grave of Karl Marx. This is the creepiest place in London; no Dickensian stretch of the river can match this calculated exercise in stucco horror, now itself decomposing. The entrance is well downhill in Swains Lane, and at first the landscape is ordinary. But as you wind up the hill it becomes more and more overgrown, choked in winter by dead fronds with an unnerving resemblance to Spanish moss. The landscape looks less and less like London, more and more like Lousiana.... Nothing seems real but death at its greyest and clammiest. The cemetery closes well before dark, and a good job too." At the top of Swains Lane is the closed north entrance - see Link

Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Marathon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Roads, Road transport Burial ground, Crematorium other tags: Highgate Cemetery Click a tag, to view other nearby images.
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TQ2887, 728 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Marathon   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Wednesday, 16 May, 2018   (more nearby)
Submitted
Saturday, 19 May, 2018
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TQ 2853 8708 [10m precision]
WGS84: 51:34.0772N 0:8.8164W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TQ 2850 8714
View Direction
South-southeast (about 157 degrees)
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Image Type (about): geograph 
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