Until late Victorian times, it was a distinct village outside London, sitting astride the main road to the north.

The area retains many green expanses, including the eastern part of Hampstead Heath, three ancient woods,[3] Waterlow Park and the eastern-facing slopes, known as Highgate bowl.

At its centre is Highgate village, largely a collection of Georgian shops, pubs, restaurants and residential streets,[4] interspersed with diverse landmarks such as St Michael's Church and steeple, St. Joseph's Church and its green copper dome, Highgate School (1565), Jacksons Lane arts centre, housed in a Grade II listed former church, the Gatehouse Inn, dating from 1670, which houses the theatre Upstairs at the Gatehouse[5] and Berthold Lubetkin's 1930s Highpoint buildings.

[6] Adjoining is Holly Village, the first gated community, built in 1865, which is a Grade II* listed site.

The school has played a paramount role in the life of the village and has existed on its site since its founding was permitted by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I in 1565.

Like much of London, Highgate suffered damage during World War II by German air raids.

The architect was Lewis Vulliamy, and in 1831 his original drawings for the church were exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Although St Joseph's Church was opened in 1889 by the Bishop of Liverpool, it was not until 1932, when its debts were cleared, that it was officially consecrated.

The organ is by William Hill and Sons, and installed in 1945 as a memorial to the local victims of the Second World War.

The case remains unsolved despite being featured heavily in the national press and on the BBC's TV programme Crimewatch.

[15] Highgate Cemetery is the burial place of Communist philosopher Karl Marx, Michael Faraday, Douglas Adams, George Eliot, Jacob Bronowski, Sir Ralph Richardson, Dawn Foster, Christina Rossetti, Sir Sidney Nolan, Alexander Litvinenko, Malcolm McLaren, Radclyffe Hall, Joseph Wolf and singer-songwriter George Michael.

A blue plaque on a house at the top of North Hill notes that Charles Dickens stayed there in 1832, when he was 20 years old.

In Victorian times St Mary Magdalene House of Charity in Highgate was a refuge for former prostitutes—"fallen women"—where Christina Rossetti was a volunteer from 1859 to 1870.

In 1817 the poet, aesthetic philosopher and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to live at 3, The Grove, Highgate, the home of Dr James Gillman, in order to rehabilitate from his opium addiction.

[18] After Dr Gillman built a special wing for the poet, Coleridge lived there for the rest of his life, becoming known as the sage of Highgate.