LG-VG35
London Gothic
The frightening apparition that was the Highgate Vampyre.
The Highgate Vampire was a media sensation surrounding reports of supposed supernatural activity at Highgate Cemetery in London in the 1970s.
A group of young people interested in the occult visited the cemetery in the late 1960s, a time when it was being vandalised by intruders. According to a report in the London Evening News of 2 November 1968:
On the night of Halloween 1968 a graveyard desecration by persons unknown occurred at Tottenham Park Cemetery in London. These persons arranged flowers taken from graves in circular patterns with arrows of blooms pointing to a new grave, which was uncovered. A coffin was opened and the body inside "disturbed". But their most macabre act was driving an iron stake in form a cross through the lid and into the breast of the corpse.
Though the identities and motivations of those responsible were never ascertained, general consensus at the time linked the desecration to events surrounding the Highgate Vampire case. Then, in a letter to the Hampstead and Highgate Express on 6 February 1970, David Farrant wrote that when passing the cemetery on 24 December 1969 he had glimpsed "a grey figure", which he considered to be supernatural, and asked if others had seen anything similar. On the 13th, several people replied, describing a variety of ghosts said to haunt the cemetery or the adjoining Swains Lane. These ghosts were described as a tall man in a hat, a spectral cyclist, a woman in white, a face glaring through the bars of a gate, a figure wading into a pond, a pale gliding form, bells ringing, and voices calling.
Sean Manchester claimed the figure was a vampire and the media quickly latched on, embellishing the tale with stories of the vampire being a king of the vampires, or of practising black magic.
Each figure in the range is between 60mm and 70mm in size. They are made from English pewter and hand painted in the UK.
*Colors may vary!