London is a city with no shortage of ghosts and grim legends. From Jack the Ripper to the Tower of London’s beheaded spectres, you’d think the city had seen it all. But no, in the heart of London’s Highgate Cemetery lurks a legend that refuses to die, quite literally! The Highgate Cemetery, with its labyrinthine pathways and gothic tombs, has, for many years, been a setting for ghost stories and conspiracies. Built in 1839, the cemetery became the final resting place for thousands, including some famous names, such as Karl Marx and Elizabeth Siddal, isn’t that a cool fun fat! Yet, its most infamous resident is one that was never officially buried. A ghostly figure has been said by believers to stalk the graveyard at night. Talk about a perfect cliché setting for a horror movie!
Still, the Highgate vampire raises a lot of controversy. On one side of the conspiracy, you have the idea that the Highgate vampire is completely real destroying any fictional narrative that may come with it, whereas on the other side, others don’t believe in the physical existence of the vampire but rather understood it as a non-corporeal entity which haunts the cemetery. I’m sure, now we live in a society that’s more logical and not riddled with hysteria, there will be people reading this who won’t believe either.
For the believers who want to get their fangs into the true details of the Highgate vampire this is for you. Within the reports of the vampire, witnesses spoke of a dark-robed supernatural presence, with piercing eyes, a figure that explored an aura of doom. Strange occurrences followed: animals found drained of blood, peculiar cold spots, and sudden attacks of paralysis reported by those who ventured too close to certain tombs. Coincidence? Not to the people at the time. The hysteria reached its peak when two paranormal investigators, David Farrant and Sean Manchester, publicly declared their belief that a vampire lurked in the cemetery.
Now, if there’s one thing scarier than a vampire, it’s two men with a shared obsession and a deep hatred for each other. Enter Sean Manchester, self-proclaimed exorcist, and David Farrant, a paranormal investigator with a fondness for theatrics. Both were determined to prove the existence of the Highgate Vampire, but in very different ways.
Sean Manchester, head of the British Occult Society, claimed that the entity in Highgate was no mere ghost. No, no this was a full-blown 15th-century Romanian noble who had been transported to London in his coffin, as one does, and now lurked in the cemetery, preying on unsuspecting Londoners. He announced his plan to track down and destroy the creature using traditional vampire-slaying methods: wooden stakes, holy water, and (presumably) a dramatic flourish.
David Farrant, on the other hand, took a more ghost-hunting approach. He insisted that the entity was a supernatural presence, not necessarily a vampire, and he aimed to capture evidence through his paranormal investigations. However, his love of theatrics got him in trouble when he was arrested for “damaging” tombs in his hunt for the entity. His excuse? He was conducting an ‘occult ceremony’. The police were not impressed to say the least.
Sadly, David Farrant died in 2019, however, his wife, Della Farrant, who wrote the book, ‘Haunted Highgate’, helped us get a glimpse of David’s supernatural mind. She said: “The Highgate ‘vampire’ case has a misleading name, because it can either refer to a fictional vampire presented as fact by its crazy inventor, Sean Manchester, or as what my late husband called it, ‘a paranormal entity that haunts North London’s Highgate Cemetery. Sightings of the latter increased in the late 1960s and made their way into the local newspaper. Soon after this Sean Manchester, claimed that the ‘ghost’ was actually a bloodsucking vampire, a bit far-fetched if you ask me”.
Della said how Sean exploited this idea in the press and in self-published books for many years, becoming increasingly eccentric and aggressive, fashioning himself as a kind of Van Helsing figure and eventually attempting to pass himself off as a legitimate bishop.
“During the same years my husband, along with his colleagues, investigated the original entity via a much more serious approach.”
Manchester’s vampire hoax was just seen as a bit of fun by local people, but unfortunately author Peter Underwood thought that it would help his book sales and included the tale as supposed fact. This made sure that generations of readers remained confused about what, if anything, really happened or happens at the cemetery in terms of the supernatural. Its shocking to see the power of words and how a written tale can convince so many people that something, no matter how crazy, is real. Although as I write this, I can’t help but think that’s maybe what I’m trying to do…
Sean Manchester, still to this day, feels very strongly about what he saw and that his research has always been precise. He said: “I published photos of a young woman with bitemarks on her throat, and of a male head and shoulders which was the decomposing corpse of the vampire. No-one can deny what I saw, no-one, and those who do are small minded”.
He also published photos of a woman he claims were killed by the vampire, turned into a vampiric spider, and was staked by himself in a cemetery one night. In these photos the woman which he calls ‘Lusia’ can be seen wandering around the cemetery sleepwalking. When asked for evidence, Sean said that no photographs or audio recordings exist of the entity, because it appears suddenly, without warning. “There are plenty of witness testimonies though including me and that’s what counts!” I wish that mindset worked for everything in life…
James Dreyfus, David Farrant’s manager, opposed Sean’s ‘convincing’ anecdote of what he saw by saying: “it’s all fabricated, the young lady with ‘puncture wounds’ in the photographs was later found to be the girlfriend of Manchester’s best friend, who was complicit in the hoax. She was traced and admitted that Manchester made the marks himself with a marker pen”. James also told me that later photographs of a bearded Sean Manchester, who was usually clean shaven in the early 1970s, proved a very close match to the photos of the supposed decaying corpse, who also shares his distinctive eyebrows. This has led many to speculate that Manchester posed for the photos himself. Whether this is true or not, it is clear Sean liked to coffin up trouble when what people say he: fabricated this story.
To also disagree with Manchester, Della said: “I do not believe in the physical existence of bloodsucking vampires in the ‘Dracula’ sense, and certainly not in the one created by Manchester. I do, however, believe that there is a non-corporeal entity which haunts the cemetery”. Like husband like wife.
As you can imagine, by 1970, the Highgate Vampire was a full-blown sensation. Fuelled by local newspaper reports and interviews with Manchester and Farrant, crowds began flocking to the cemetery in the hopes of spotting the ‘vampire’. Some carried crucifixes; others brought cameras, hoping for a ghostly snapshot.
Then, Manchester announced he would be performing a vampire exorcism live on television, because what’s an exorcism without an audience? As news spread, the cemetery was overrun with thrill-seekers, goths, and people who just really wanted to see a vampire get staked. Farrant, of course, dismissed this as complete nonsense. He continued his own investigations until he was arrested in 1974 for, among other things, “vampire hunting without a license.” (Yes, that’s apparently a thing!)
So, what was really going on at Highgate? Was there a vampire, a ghost, or just a case of mass hysteria mixed with a little 70s occult madness? Sceptics argue that the Highgate Vampire was nothing more than a mix of urban legend, misinterpreted paranormal experiences, and a media frenzy that got out of hand. The reports of red eyes could have been tricks of the light, the feeling of being watched could be attributed to the cemetery’s naturally spooky atmosphere, and the dead animals? Likely the work of a hungry predator, not a bloodthirsty vampire from Transylvania.
As for Manchester and Farrant, their feud continued for decades. The Highgate Cemetery remains a hotspot for paranormal enthusiasts, and the legend of the vampire continues to be retold, adapted, and exaggerated.
Whether or not you believe in the Highgate Vampire, there’s no denying that the whole saga is one of the most bizarre chapters in British supernatural history. It has all the elements of a perfect gothic horror story: an overgrown cemetery, mysterious figures, a full-blown vampire panic, and two rival hunters with egos the size of the UK itself.
So, if you ever find yourself wandering Highgate Cemetery, keep an eye out for glowing red eyes. Just in case. Or, at the very least, be on the lookout for vampire hunters with unfinished business, because in the world of the unexplained, some legends refuse to stay buried.
