The Highgate Vampire - fangs at dawn

The Highgate Vampire first came to notice in the 1960s and after a flurry of publicity that lasted into the mid 1980s, the story has been bubbling just beneath the surface ever since. It is one made famous by the sparring of paranormal experts as much as by the ghoul himself.

The vampire apparently takes the form of a 'tall dark figure' that usually disappears promptly after being sighted. Sometimes, it is not actually seen, but sensed or 'felt' by unsuspecting witnesses.

The last recorded sighting was in July 2005 by a person returning home who lived quite close to Highgate Cemetery. The dark figure whispered to him as he passed the cemetery gates - "Good evening Sir"! Soon afterwards it melted away through the main gate of Highgate Cemetery.

Almost from the start the Highgate Vampire phenomenon has been marked by a feud between two locals who claim to be competent exorcists and researchers of the paranormal. Each pours scorn on the other's alleged expertise.

The feud apparently remains vigorous to this day. The protagonists,  Sean Manchester and David Farrant, continue to investigate supposed supernatural phenomena, and have both written and spoken repeatedly about the Highgate events, in every medium available, each stressing his own role to the exclusion of the other.

In this social media age, the phenomenon and perhaps the feud has transferred on to Facebook. 

The Highgate Vampire Society, run by David Farrant was set up to investigate the vampire and the society's Facebook group has 130 members. However it is just one of four Highgate Vampire Facebook groups. Two of which are open and two closed.

The other open group, called The Highgate Cemetery Vampire Appreciation Society, is run by Redmond McWilliams. It is about half the size of its competitor with about 58 members.

McWilliams has recently made the following appeal:

Have you or anyone you know experienced anything strange or unusual either within the old west cemetery or in the nearby Swains Lane? These eyewitness accounts can be from either the late sixties/early seventies (during the height of the vampire scare), even older or much more recent. There have also been (so far unsubstantiated) claims of a Victorian origin so any historical sources of information would also be most welcome. I can be contacted via the society email address:

thcvas@groups.facebook.com.

Manchester appears not to be taking up the fangbags at dawn challenge of sparring on social media but here's a clip from YouTube featuring him :

The Highgate Vampire on Wikipedia