The site, resting place to Karl Marx and George Michael, is vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
Communist Manifesto co-author Karl Marx is among the prominent figures buried at the cemetery Efforts to protect north London's historic Highgate Cemetery from the effects of climate change have received a £6.7m boost from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, which owns and manages the cemetery, said the funding would support a wider £19.5m restoration and conservation programme. The five-year scheme forms the first phase of a 25-year masterplan aimed at preserving the cemetery's heritage while improving public access and community engagement.
Trust chief executive Dr Ian Dungavell said one of the site's biggest challenges was climate change, with heavier winter rainfall worsening long-standing maintenance problems dating back to before the cemetery came under charitable ownership in 1975. Planned work includes installing a new drainage system to reduce waterlogging and collect rainwater for use around the site. Paths will also be improved, while trees affected by ash dieback disease will be removed to encourage new, climate-resilient planting.
Dungavell said much of the work would be invisible to visitors, who value the cemetery's "romantic, overgrown look" and its atmosphere as a "place apart from the everyday". He added: "This grant is a vote of confidence in plans that will preserve what makes Highgate Cemetery special and respect the needs of grave-owners, while opening it up to many more people.
" The project also includes improvements to the entrance courtyard to make it more accessible, the addition of more toilets and the opening of a new "living room" venue inside the Dissenters' Chapel later this year for workshops and exhibitions. Conservation work will restore the Grade I-listed Egyptian Avenue and Circle of Lebanon, including reinstating one of the obelisks at the avenue entrance.
Repairs to the roof of the Grade II*-listed Terrace Catacombs will also restore views across London towards St Paul's Cathedral for the first time in 50 years. Dungavell said visitors would once again experience the "wonderful contrast between the land of the dead" and "the land of the living in the distance". Eilish McGuinness, chief executive of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, said the funding would help "safeguard this nationally important, much-loved cemetery and its monuments for the future".
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