Highgate Cemetery competition

from Landscape Journal Summer 2021: The Landscape of Power

by Landscape, the journal of the Landscape Institute

The COVID-19 Lockdown Papers: insights, reflections and implications for urbanism and landscape

By Ian Dungavell

Ian Dungavell is chief executive of Highgate Cemetery. An architectural historian and conservationist, he was formerly director of the Victorian Society.

Over the past year, the Landscape Institute has been running a landscape masterplan competition for one of London’s most-loved cemeteries. Its Director outlines the challenges.

This year has already been tough for trees. The end of March was unusually warm, and April was very dry and cold, leaving them desperate for water. But then May was perhaps the wettest ever, with torrential downpours and hail rather than the sedate day-long drizzle England has been famous for. Once they had started to come into leaf, an unusually deep area of low pressure brought winds of the strength we’d expect only in winter.

If the weather was not stressful enough in itself, Highgate Cemetery’s trees also have to cope with cramped root space, sometimes straddling ledger stones or squeezing themselves in between brick vaults, all the time fighting for light with the other self-set upstarts of their generation. No wonder they get stressed and are more prone to pests and diseases.

A pragmatic policy over many years of landscape management by minimal intervention created an attractive aesthetic of ‘romantic decay’ which captivated visitors. Like others, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, the charity which now runs the cemetery, was spellbound by its beauty and fearful of changes which might destroy it. Yet the landscape was gradually destroying itself and, unintentionally, biodiversity was declining.

So too was the quality of its landscape design. Highgate Cemetery’s original ‘garden architect’ or ‘landscape engineer’, as he called himself, would have been horrified. David Ramsay was well-versed in the tradition of the Picturesque, and understood that sensations of contrast, variety and delight heightened the experience of moving through the landscape. This was no simple utilitarian landscape. But open areas had become clogged with self-set trees and bramble, obscuring long and near views, and homogeneity ruled where surprise was called for.

The Trust’s Conservation Plan, completed in 2019, set out the new balance which was to be achieved: ‘Trees of the most suitable species in the most suitable places and in good health will make it easier, and safer to appreciate the quality of our historic landscape. Furthermore, not only will they be less likely to damage memorials, this will be better for biodiversity too.’ That meant not only extending the lifespan of historic trees by careful management, but also reinstating structural planting, clearing areas of secondary woodland and replanting with a greater variety of trees and shrubs, reopening historic views and, crucially, thinking about biodiversity and the climate emergency. All the while sustaining its special interest as a Grade 1 registered landscape; a cultural designation rather than an ecological one.

Inevitably, people reach for the ‘restored to glory’ cliché to describe such a project, but there is no going backwards with historic cemeteries: there have been too many layers of additional burials for that. Nor is it always desirable: an aerial photograph taken in 1939 shows Highgate Cemetery East as an arid landscape, almost bereft of trees save for a couple of intersecting avenues of poplars. Nobody would want that now. The cemetery is an evolving, changing, developing thing, and you just can’t put it into reverse.

We find ourselves in a very different situation from when the cemetery opened over 180 years ago, and with additional priorities. The task for our landscape architects is a sensitive reimagining of the cemetery landscape: true to the design principles of the founders, resilient to the effects of climate change, supportive of biodiversity, and capable of being maintained with a fraction of the original labour force.

But which landscape architects will guide Highgate Cemetery in the next phase of its evolution? Following an open competition managed by the Landscape Institute, four firms of landscape architects were invited to submit ideas as to what this ‘historic cemetery for the 21st century’ might actually look like. The winners have yet to be announced, but even a quick look at their submissions, illustrated here, shows how the judging panel had its hands full in choosing between these alternative futures as designers responded to the site in different ways.

“Our watchword is evolution, not revolution,” said Martin Bhatia of Colvin & Moggridge. “Our vision recognizes the strength of the respective characters of Highgate Cemetery. To the West, contemplative picturesque woodland with dramatic topography, densely planted evergreen groups creating a sequence of strong contrast between light and shade along the journey uphill.”

Neil Porter of Gustafson Porter + Bowman talked of a “topographical journey of discovery”: “we imagine the woodland opening and closing to reveal glades of sunlight, views into the woodland revealing hidden graves and drifts of woodland plants... at the top of the hill, the planting represents a paradise on Earth, and one gets fantastic views over central London.”

Johanna Gibbons of J&L Gibbons

explained that their “concept is one of extraordinary respect and radical caretaking. It is to do with appreciating this intersection of every aspect of design and stewardship. Our vision is to work with the current assets, which are highly valuable both natural and built, and to graft in a long term future for this place. No landscape can be left on its own. It needs to be looked after.’

Periscope took a ”seven generation look at the life and death cycle of a cemetery,” explained Daniel Rea. “We’re looking forward to our children’s children, and back to our parents’ parents, and trying to understand the impacts of our actions in the past and what we can leave for our children’s children, and in that way we are trying to address the climate crisis, but also understanding how the culture of burial and death will change in the future, and how we can provide for that.”

Whichever practice is chosen will have its work cut out. There is a strong sense of ownership, and several groups must all be satisfied: grave owners, volunteers, local residents, as well as tourist visitors. All have their own ideas about how Highgate Cemetery should face the future. Even designers used to working in the public sphere will have to approach the task with extraordinary sensitivity.