Highgate cemetery is a burial ground in the north of London. There's well over 50,000 graves there containing nearly 200,000 Londoners. It's a massive place that stemmed from Victorian times so it's packed full of Gothic charm and creepiness. It's an eerie and overgrown site so it's not a shock to hear about decades old stories detailing the forces of darkness that roam it's crooked pathways and crumbling tombs when the sun sinks below the horizon and the night rises on tenebrous wings (I totally stole this line from Salem's Lot btw).
It's just a pity that the stories are a load of bollix. Or are they? Ooooooo.
In 1968 a group of tombs were vandalised and a body still in it's coffin was found with an iron bar rammed into it's chest. This macabre act seemed to stir up the imaginations of the people of Highgate and in particular two local men. Two very unusual local men.
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| David Farrant |
On Christmas Eve 1969 a man named David Farrant claimed to have seem a ghostly figure wandering the cemetery as he passed by one evening. He contacted a paper and they published his claims and asked had anyone else seen anything spooky in the area. Numerous people got back to him telling him about all manner of ghosts and goblins in the graveyard but one reply really stood one. A reply that said with certainty that the supernatural being wasn't a ghost, but a vampire. And not only a vampire but a King vampire. The person making this claim was a fellow by the name of Sean Manchester.
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| Bishop Sean Manchester |
London's newspapers lapped it up and knowing the public's love for a scary story they stoked the hell out of it all and this led to a rivalry between Sean and David. Both claimed to be supernatural experts and both claimed they could rid the cemetery of the vampire's evil presence. Live exorcisms followed on ITV (seriously). Manchester's vampire tale grew exponentially every time he told it until it almost exactly resembled a certain Bram Stoker tale (except for the part where the vampire turned into a giant spider, yeah.). Farrant was arrested for desecrating tombs in his search for nightwalkers and for taking part in nude public Wiccan rituals. Manchester went so far as claiming him and friends had actually found a vampire but for legal reasons they talked him out of staking it. The papers couldn't believe their luck with the two of them. Issues flew out of the shops and they played each one off the other so well that eventually they started challenging each other to duels in the Summer of 1973. Magic duels! Sadly the duels never happened but the rivalry continued for decades until David Farrant's death in April of this year. Over the years Farrant distanced himself from the stories but Manchester doubled down on his and released numerous books chronicling his battles with the undead.
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| Farrant's TV exorcism |
We need to see a film made about this. It would be an absolute blast. A comedy rivalry for the ages. Sean Manchester, the self proclaimed Bishop (yeah) and David Farrant, the Wiccan high priest facing off in the press. Imagine Simon Pegg as Farrant and Nick Frost as Manchester. The final film in their trilogy of comedy horror (Hot Fuzz & World's End aren't horror) that started brilliantly with Shaun Of The Dead before dying on it's arse with Splatterhouse Rulez. If done well this could be as good as Shaun was. We all know they work brilliantly together but seeing them against each other could be awesome. The horror part would be good too. Even without the supernatural stuff it's a creepy story and the setting is just terrifying.
Someone tee this one up please. It's a story that would be just perfect for the British sense of humour. It's just too good a tale to let lie.
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