Church of St Michael

St Michael’s Church stands at the top of Highgate Hill in North London, the highest elevated church in the capital. It is an Anglican parish church with Grade II* listed status, built in the early 19th century on the site of a derelict house called Ashhurst House. The church replaced an older chapel that had served Highgate for two and a half centuries. Lewis Vulliamy designed it in the Neo-Gothic style at a cost of £8,171. Legal delays meant the building stood empty for nine months before it could be consecrated in 1832. The church has strong links to Highgate School, which once used the site for its chapel. Notable figures connected to the church include Edmund Grindal and Sir Roger Cholmeley, whose coats of arms are carved above the west door. The church’s spire forms a landmark visible from Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill. Beneath the building lies a 17th-century wine cellar, and in 2018 the burial site of Samuel Taylor Coleridge was uncovered, marked by a plaque. Inside, the church contains an 1842 organ and an 1848 pulpit, with choir practices beginning in 1865. The old burial ground, closed to new burials in 1857, remains part of the site. The church has been restored after bomb damage in 1944 and extended in later centuries by architects including George Edmund Street and Temple Moore. Its stained glass includes work by Evie Hone, and remnants of Ashhurst House can still be seen in the walls.