“Does a Wampyr Walk in Highgate?” asked the Ham & High 45 years ago. Evidence says no. Erin Chapman tracks the Highgate Vampire to some logical conclusions.
Do you need a refresher on the Highgate Vampire scenario? Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: In the 1970s, there was a media furor surrounding London’s Highgate Cemetery, when a couple of dueling paranormal investigators both claimed the graveyard was the haunt of a vampire. The revenant in question, a nobleman and necromancer from Eastern Europe, had been brought into the country in the 1700s, where a house had been secured for him. (Does any of this sound familiar to you? Mmm, Bram Stoker, much?) Black magic rituals in the 70s had then roused him. Both paranormal “investigators” led competing expeditions to locate and destroy the vampire, with both reporting varying degrees of success.
If you actually need something in the way of concrete evidence to persuade you that the Highgate Vampire hoopla was all sound and fury, signifying nothing, then here it is. A careful combing-through of ONE of the two vampire hunter’s written accounts of the events at Highgate proves that the geography is all wrong. None of the major “landmarks” alluded to in the document-cum-novel is where it’s supposed to be, or sometimes even WHAT it’s supposed to be. Whether the writer was just a huckster or he really believed he was hunting a vampire, he was guilty of sloppy research.
