Co-authored with Jane Faulkner, North London NHS Foundation Trust
Calm, relaxed and peaceful. Curious, inspired and thoughtful. Reflective, thankful and sad. These were feelings highlighted on The Emotions Wheel by participants in a recent “walkshop” at Highgate Cemetery, designed and delivered with Jane Faulkner, Lived Experience Workforce Lead at the North London NHS Foundation Trust. We were commissioned to help the cemetery team identify what they might offer to a more diverse range of potential visitors than currently, with a particular emphasis on mental wellbeing in the context of their long-term plans. The event delved into what it is about historic cemeteries that does or does not draw different people in. So, among other things, we wanted to know how participants felt as they walked around both the East and West sides of the cemetery as well as the pertinence of that for different groups who might be encouraged to visit.
Historic cemeteries and their modern-day functions
While it’s not unusual for people to spend time in cemeteries, the idea that this is an appealing thing to do is partly shaped by culture as well as personal experience. For some, a cemetery is just one green space where they might go for a stroll, walk the dog or meet up with friends. This is particularly true of “non-active” cemeteries which are now managed by councils within their public parks portfolio. For others, visiting a cemetery is something distinct from this and all the more so if it is, say, one of London’s Magnificent Seven with their impressive monuments, glimpses into personal histories, and evocative landscapes. A subset of these, including Highgate, continues to offer burial plots or funeral ceremonies, making them a special blend of visitor attraction, local leisure amenity and service provision. But there are barriers too, spanning attitudes to death and beliefs about an afterlife, physical constraints due to a site’s design or condition, and some complex and sensitive areas including taboos or inhibitions about acknowledging death by suicide. At Highgate, some grave owners – who will have paid for their plots – have a strong sense of ownership of the site overall and may be resistant to initiatives which will alter what they have purchased. In the same way that local authority park managers are constantly balancing competing preferences and needs, the Trust responsible for Highgate Cemetery is continually striving to manage such tensions.
Cemeteries and the routes to wellbeing and health equity
Against this backdrop, our walkshop drew on an evidence review by Kay Pallaris, Gemma Moore and Liza Griffin (University College London) showing how cemeteries can benefit people’s mental health and wellbeing as a result of four different factors:
- personal factors, such as the opportunity to enjoy a peaceful setting;
- social factors, such as taking part in voluntary or other group activities;
- cultural factors, such as learning about one’s own or others’ heritage;
- environmental factors, such as connecting with nature.
We also considered aspects of the Unlocking Highgate Cemetery masterplan presented by Neil Porter of Gustafson, Porter and Bowman. For example, details about changes to the landscaping to adapt to climate change and improve access, restoration of city views, and creation of new experiences of engagement with the site through planting and landscape management choices.
We wanted participants’ ideas for building on this research and expertise to help develop a Highgate Cemetery programme grounded in place, and one which would support people’s mental wellbeing and contribute to the health equity objectives of Camden and Islington’s Parks for Health Strategy plus the health and wellbeing priorities of Camden, Islington and Haringey (Highgate’s home and neighbouring boroughs). These ideas have been presented to the Trust who are now deciding which to incorporate into their plans for the next five years or so.
Immersion in nature past, present and future
To offer a personal angle on what we heard, when Jane and I analysed participants’ contributions as a whole, it was the biodiverse, multisensory and quiet nature of the place which seemed particularly significant to them. This suggests to us that the greatest potential for delivering a new and health-oriented offer is with one which makes the most of the landscape as it is now and also as it evolves over time. That is, one which is nature-based while complementing the people and history emphasis of current visitor tours and information materials; but also as a route in for different groups to respond to this and tell new stories about individuals and communities in new ways.
More specifically, an insight from the event but also from the reflective walks Jane has been running at the cemetery is that the different landscapes on the East and West sides seem to stimulate different emotions and even behaviours. The East side has a more open vista and is where a more obviously diverse group is buried. There are humorous epitaphs (although these aren’t absent from the West), one example highlighting that the deceased was “an international man of mystery”, another declaring “Lawyer. Should have been a marine biologist”. And the East side also invites communal memorials and visits – Marx’s tomb being one, but the many pens offered in tribute to author Douglas Adams are a reminder of how we can be connected publicly even in our most private of times. The West side is grander, imposing but softened by the reverence that seems to permeate through tangled ivy and worn stone. Originally more open and with views across London from its highest point, it is now overgrown and more shaded than the East. What’s striking is that when inviting walk attendees to connect emotionally to themselves in the East side, people tend to walk together (in pairs or threes) and the conversation lends itself to wider issues affecting community and heritage. In the West side, people tend to explore on their own, are quieter when they return to the group, and their thoughts are more personal, more private than public.
Healthy integration of public and private, external and internal
It’s Public Health orthodoxy that external or environmental factors have an impact on the internal. A visit to Highgate Cemetery clearly “speaks” to both. So we believe there are opportunities through Unlocking Highgate Cemetery to capitalise on this both via the physical design details and the activity programming – and, most importantly, via the interactions between the two.
Read When is a cemetery good for your health?
