- 1). Start at Highgate East, on the east side of Swains Lane in the village of Highgate, and go in the left-hand gate. Proceed along Top Road, and where it intersects with Main Road you'll see the stone of Douglas Adams, author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." At the intersection of Top Road and Dissenter's Path, turn left and up on the right you'll see the grave of Mary Ann Evans, better known as the writer George Eliot. Her works include "Middlemarch," "Adam Bede," "Silas Marner" and "The Mill on the Floss."
- 2). Turn around, retrace your steps and go back to the intersection of Top Road and Dissenter's Path. Continue on to Back Road and on the left you'll see the main attraction in Highgate: the tomb of political theorist Karl Marx. The monument is topped with a bust of Marx, while the base bears Marx's famous line "Workers of all lands, unite." Overall, the tomb looks like a giant jack-in-the-box.
- 3). Go now to the left to the tomb of Herbert Spencer, the father of the discipline of sociology. Sweep along Back Road and down to Bottom Road and make a right onto Main Road. Pass Babies Head Path (yes, you read that right) on the left and up on the right you'll see the unique tomb of pianist Harry Thornton, whose tomb is a stone piano. Pass Shaw's Path on the right, go up a bit and on the right is the flat stone of actor Sir Ralph Richardson. Leave through the left-hand gate on Top Road.
- 4). Proceed to Highgate West, on the west side of Swains Lane, only if you've arranged for a paid, guided tour with the Friends of Highgate Cemetery. Highgate West is not open to walk-in visitors--possibly because there's so many monuments there in a delicate state of repair. Each guide seems to pick his own tour route, but invariably they will pass by the tombs of the Gabriele, Elizabeth and Christina Rossetti, lesbian author Radclyffe Hall, Charles Dickens' wife and daughter, Catherine and Dora, the painter John Singleton Copley, scientist Michael Faraday and scientist, author and television host Jacob Bronowski.
- 5). Finish at St. Michael's Church, at the corner of South Grove and Bacon's Lane in the village of Highgate. There you'll see in the floor, the grave marker of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
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