Searches
With 170,000 people buried in 53,000 graves at Highgate Cemetery, finding the person you are looking for may not be easy.
Our £40 grave search service includes:
- A search of the Register
- A copy of entry in the Burial Register
- Digital photographs of the grave
- A copy of the original cemetery map showing the location of the grave.
- A map showing the location in the context of the cemetery as a whole
- Clear access to the grave
- An appointment for you and up to three others to be accompanied to the grave, normally on a weekday, excepting Friday afternoons
What are my alternatives?
Copies of our registers up to 1975 are held at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, 32-38 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8PA where they may be consulted for free. Note that you will probably still need to pay for a location search to find the grave.
For all burials from 1975 onwards, please contact our Registrar directly on 020 8347 2471 to confirm the procedure and appropriate fee.
Finding a grave ... East and West
Highgate Cemetery is in two parts, the East side and the West side. Visitors may wander the paths, but for safety reasons most of the West Cemetery away from the main paths is not accessible. This means that if the person you are looking for is not buried in an accessible location, a location search is essential. Although the cemetery is divided into squares, there is no indication of these on the ground. It is unlikely that you will find a grave easily by yourself. Grave numbers themselves give no clue to where people are in the cemetery as they were allocated in order of purchase, not according to the location.
Memorials
Not all graves have memorials, and memorials were not permitted on ‘common’ or ‘public’ graves, so sometimes there is nothing much to look at. Memorials are the responsibility of the registered owner and not of the cemetery.
Grave ownership and admission charges
Every private grave has at least one named registered owner. Location searches are free for the registered owner of the grave being searched for. If you believe you may be entitled to own a grave, please ask for a copy of our guidance on Owning and transferring burial rights. A fee is payable for the transfer of ownership.
Registered owners are provided with passes which give free access to their grave so they do not have to pay admission fees to visit the cemetery.
Commonwealth war graves
There are over 300 war graves at Highgate Cemetery
Those killed in battle abroad were normally buried near where they fell, but the wounded were repatriated for medical attention and those who did not recover were also given official recognition. However, their families had the say on where they were buried and whether they wanted the CWG headstone or one of their own choosing.
Most war graves are in Highgate Cemetery East but there are around 35 in Highgate Cemetery West. Most are from the First World War but there are over thirty from the Second World War, including a few women.
The official headstones in Portland stone are easy to recognise and many can be seen from the paths. However, some families opted for their own memorials. In these cases you have to read the inscription to identify it as a war grave, and many are tucked away in some of the wilder areas of the cemetery.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission provides a list of war graves at Highgate Cemetery.