16 CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 Dissenters’ Chapel, presently used as offices. The reinstatement of the missing pinnacles and cupola of the chapel building will enable it to be appreciated as one of the most exciting of its period, with an energy and pizzazz missing from other, more staid, examples. New buildings will be complementary, subservient to historic structures and discreetly sited. Historic landscape conservation is altogether more complicated. The cemetery has constantly been added to, with graves taking over areas of open ground and many paths themselves buried. Extensive historical research has helped the trust better to understand the original design intent, the varieties of plants used, the state of drainage, paths and borders, and the different characters of the two halves of the site. From the 1960s onwards, self-set ash trees anchored themselves wherever they could, on and between graves, growing tall and spindly in competition for light. Having now reached a size where their roots are increasingly incapable of keeping them upright, something would have had to be done about the trees. The advent of ash dieback disease has made the problem more urgent, with many trees having to be removed before drainage works and replanting plans are in place. There are challenges, too, in dealing with climate change. Much effort has gone into thinking about species which, as we replant, will be more resilient to hotter, drier summers and wetter winters and how they will enhance biodiversity. Surveys have been done of what remains of the historic drainage system to see how stainable drainage options can stop it being overwhelmed during increasingly heavy downpours. And new path surfaces are being investigated with an eye to appearance, accessibility and durability. Getting the balance right between burials and tourism, between heritage and nature, and between the past and the future, will be crucial. With climate change and diseases, self-set ash find it increasingly difficult to stay upright. Ian Dungavell is chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust.
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