Erno Goldfinger and 2 Willow Road: The House That Nobody Wanted - Fabian Watkinson
2023-02-09 19:15 - 21:00 (Europe/London) | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Fabian Watkinson has a passion for architecture and is the author of The Golden Age of Camden Housing. He has been a National Trust volunteer guide at 2 Willow Road in Hampstead for the past five years and he will tell us about the controversy surrounding its building in the 1930s and the equal controversy surrounding its acquisition by the National Trust in the early 90s.

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Highgate Pink Plaques Project: Honouring Women from Angela Burdett-Coutts to Stella Gibbons - Catharine Wells
2023-03-09 19:30 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
The Pink Plaques project was started by three local women, including Catharine Wells, inspired by the low number of women remembered with blue plaques. It celebrates the lives of many Highgate women who have made a difference past and present, including Angela Burdett-Coutts, Stella Gibbons, Christina Rossetti, Mary Kingsley, Victoria Wood and Claudia Jones. Catharine will tell us all about it.

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Photo credit: Polly Hancock

The story of a London art studio for asylum seekers and refugees - Tania Kaczynski - and FoHL AGM
2023-04-18 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Tania Kaczynski is an art psychotherapist working at The New Art Studio, set up as a lifeline for refugees and asylum seekers. Her book tells how creating art can provide hope for those who have lost everything. In it alongside the work of the studio’s members are their true stories of bravery, loss and redemption. She will talk about her vital work. Before the talk, there will be a short AGM for the Friends of Highgate Library.

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See the Chair’s report and accounts for the AGM

Untold London: Stories from time-trodden streets - Dan Carrier
2023-05-16 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Dan Carrier calls it a love letter to London. Within the first 20 pages, we’ve learned about the crocodiles that once called St James’ Park home. Some of the walks will take you to places you already know but might need reminding of, others will head into new parts of Westminster worthy of exploration. You won’t get 10 yards without Dan pulling out some outrageous fact about a lost watering hole or something hidden behind a faded façade. With this book, everybody can take a stroll with him too. Dan will talk to us about the book and its stories.

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Buy the Untold London book at History Press

Esther Freud - Spinning Stories
2023-06-20 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Esther Freud is a novelist much admired for her absorbing stories of family relationships, children and lovers, as well as for the wealth of sensuous details that she brings to the storytelling. Esther will be talking about her most recent novel, I Couldn’t Love You More and how she uses the springboard of personal experience to create fiction.

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Esther Freud’s website

The Peckham Experiment - Guy Ware
2023-07-18 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Guy Ware is a critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer. The Peckham Experiment is his fourth and latest novel. He joins us to discuss it, along with the history and legacy of the original Peckham Experiment.

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Guy Ware – The Peckham Experiment at Salt Publishing

African and Caribbean People in Britain - Professor Hakim Adi
2023-09-19 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
A meticulously researched tour de force that charts black presence on the British Isles from Cheddar Man through the African Roman legions and Black Tudors and into the present day. Professor Adi will present his research.

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Tim Blackburn - The Jewel Box
2023-10-17 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Every morning, ecologist Tim Blackburn is inspired by the diversity contained within the moth trap he runs on his London roof. In THE JEWEL BOX, Tim reflects on what he has learned as a scientist studying ecosystems and demonstrates how the contents of one small box can illuminate the workings of all nature.

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John Richmond - An evening of poetry and prose
2023-11-21 19:15 - 21:00
John Richmond will read a selection of his poems and autobiographical prose. His work is variously personal, descriptive and narrative, and occasionally political. He says, “Reading and writing poetry has been a part-time occupation but a constant preoccupation all my life.” John has been an English teacher, an adviser of teachers, and an educational broadcaster.
Copies of the three books will be available for sale at the in-person event.

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Poems and Prose by John Richmond website

Keats and the seven women - A Pop-up Play by Beth Shaw and Martin Bould
2023-12-12 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Join our pop up play to follow the poet John Keats’ emotional journey from Cockney orphan to the tribulations of romantic love. Meet the seven women – and some of the men – who shaped him.
Beth Shaw and Martin Bould’s latest pop-up play charts the poet John Keats’ emotional journey from Cockney orphan to man-about town, from would-be radical and trainee surgeon to the tribulations of romantic love. Although Keats is usually associated with Hampstead, he led an itinerant life, including a fortnight’s stay in Kentish Town. This is a fun play, so instead of tracking tuberculosis, we follow him from infancy until his departure for Rome, meeting mother, grandmother, sister and sister-in-law, the mysterious Isabella Jones and finally Mrs. Brawne and her daughter Fanny.
There’s no rehearsal and no learning lines in this ‘instant play’ – pick up a script on the night or join us as audience.
Drinks and nibbles will be served for our last event of 2023!

This event will only be for those attending in person. There’s no need to register – just arrive on the day!

My Life in Middlemarch and Home/Land - Rebecca Mead
2024-01-16 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Road Chapel, Chetwynd Road, London, NW5 1BU, United Kingdom
Rebecca is a writer and journalist, born in London, grew up in Dorset, went to Oxford University, then studied and settled in New York and began writing for The New Yorker. In 2018 she returned to live in the UK after 30 years in the USA. Her book Home/Land is a memoir exploring the themes of identity, nationality and inheritance. In The Road to Middlemarch she writes passionately about her relationship to this much-loved Victorian novel and shows how we can live richer lives through engaging with great literary works.
She will discuss both books in conversation.
Note that this event is not in the library hall while works are being undertaken.
There is no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Out of the Frame - Joe Treasure and Zimmy Ryan
2024-02-20 19:15 - 21:00 | Brookfield Primary School, 101 Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
A performance of poems, richly illustrated with famous paintings
Joe Treasure is the author of three novels. Out of the Frame is Joe’s first collection of poems. Art from six centuries brought dramatically to life through the imagined voices of the artists, their models and the figures they represent. Hear the thoughts of a trio of disdainful goddesses, a couple of WWI veterans and a woman hurrying to meet her lover in 19th century Paris. Zimmy Ryan trained at LAMDA and worked as an actor before becoming a psychotherapist.
Note that this event is not in the library hall while works are being undertaken.
There is no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Caitlin Davies - Private Inquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths
2024-03-19 19:15 - 21:00 | Brookfield Primary School, 101 Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Female private eyes have been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years – from plucky Victorian ladies to ‘busy body spinsters’ and fearless modern investigators. But what about the real women detectives? What crimes did they solve? Where are their stories?
“a riveting myth buster, with its revelations of the real histories of women PIs” – Val McDermid
Caitlin is a novelist, non-fiction writer, teacher, mentor and journalist. She’s the author of six novels and eight non-fiction books. She will join us via Zoom to talk about her book.
Note that this event is not in the library hall while works are being undertaken – we will be in the school hall next door.

There is no need to register to attend in person – just arrive on the evening to see the talk on a big screen!
Register at this link to join on Zoom

"Women in Revolt!" - Art and Activism - The local story
2024-04-23 19:15 - 21:00 | Brookfield Primary School, 101 Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
The recent exhibition at Tate Britain was an inspiring tribute to the power of women’s art in the Women’s Liberation Movement. It was infused with a radical power, passion, and energy drawing its strength from the grass roots. Women living and working in Camden were very much part of it.
Come and hear from some of the local exhibitors and women in the exhibition:
Pru Stevenson who set up the See Red Poster Workshop, Mica Nava a member of the Tufnell Park Women’s Group, Joanne O’Brien, founder of first women’s photographer agency. Event chaired by Angela Mason former director of Stonewall and former Chair of the Fawcett Society.
There is no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

A Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and the Siege of Sidney Street - Andrew Whitehead
2024-05-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Highgate Cemetery, Swain's Lane, London, N6 6PJ, United Kingdom
Come and hear Andrew Whitehead and find out more of this fascinating story.
‘The Tottenham Outrage, the Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street rank among the most extraordinary events in modern London history. In this new and wonderfully readable account, Andrew Whitehead combines unrivalled knowledge with meticulous scholarship to reveal for the first time the full story behind these spectacular but mysterious crimes.’ – Jerry White
In the Chapel at Highgate Cemetery and on Zoom.
Join us from 7pm for drinks and nibbles in the courtyard with an opportunity to see the ‘Unlocking Highgate Cemetery’ exhibition.

There is no need to register to attend in person – just arrive on the evening!
Register at this link to join on Zoom

The Night in Venice - Andrew Martin
2024-06-25 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Road Chapel, Chetwynd Road, London, NW5 1BU, United Kingdom
Come and find out more about Yorkshire, Venice and crime fiction.
Andrew Martin grew up in Yorkshire and is the award-winning author of about thirty books – both non-fiction books about railways and fiction, usually historical crime novels, featuring the railwayman, Jim Stringer. His new dark and irresistible historical novel set in 1911 features Monica: a fourteen-year-old girl with a disturbing imagination…
Note that this event is not in the library hall while works are being undertaken. Details are below.
There is no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Christian Wolmar - The Liberation Line: The last untold story of the Normandy landings
2024-07-16 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Society, 10A South Grove, London, N6 6BS, United Kingdom
Christian Wolmar is an award-winning writer and broadcaster specialising in transport and is the author of a series of books on railway history. Come and hear about his latest book as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of this event.
‘A masterful account of the unsung heroes of the battle for Normandy. Without the valiant efforts of the British and American railwaymen, the liberation of France might have had a very different outcome. A gripping tale.’ – Giles Milton
Note that this event is not in the library hall while works are being undertaken. Details are below.
There is no need to register – just arrive on the evening!
This talk will be in-person, and not on Zoom.

Camden Lock - Judith Morrison
2024-09-24 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Society, 10A South Grove, London, N6 6BS, United Kingdom
Judith chose Camden Lock Market as the subject for her master’s degree research having lived nearby since 1971. The Market has grown and changed over fifty years bringing thousands of tourists, music, fast food and a variety of attractions. Some changes are welcomed, others regretted. Judith has spoken to many people who have lived and worked in and around the market to produce her fascinating study.

There’s no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Note the date has changed since first advertised – the talk will now be on 24th September.

Intertextuality or How all stories are linked - Alexandra Dold
2024-10-15 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Society, 10A South Grove, London, N6 6BS, United Kingdom
Join us for a fascinating talk on intertextuality — a concept that explores how books, movies, and other works of art echo, reference, or transform each other. Simply put, intertextuality is about how all stories are linked, whether through familiar plots, characters, or subtle nods to past works.
Alex’s research interests are Highland literature and historical novels and she is currently finishing her Ph.D. research on Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels as public history. See how Outlander draws from history, mythology, and literature to create its rich world and learn how you can recognise intertextuality in your next reading adventure.

There’s no need to register to attend in person – just arrive on the evening to watch together on the big screen – Alex will join us via Zoom
To join on Zoom, register at this link

Save Me from the Waves - Jessica Hepburn
2024-11-12 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Society, 10A South Grove, London, N6 6BS, United Kingdom
Jessica Hepburn is an unlikely athlete. However, in her forties, following a succession of hard and sad life experiences she began to try to exercise her way out of heartbreak. She has become one of the world’s most extraordinary endurance athletes. The first and only woman on the planet to have swum the English Channel, run the London Marathon and climbed Mount Everest. And possibly the only woman to have listened to over 3,000 episodes of Desert Island Discs.
Save Me from the Waves is an inspirational story. Come and hear all about it.

There’s no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Angela Burdett Coutts – Empress of Holly Lodge: a pop up play - Beth Shaw and Martin Bould
2024-12-05 19:15 - 21:00 | Holly Lodge Community Centre, 30 Makepeace Avenue, London, N6 6HL, United Kingdom
To mark the work on our historic library and also to celebrate the centenary of the Holly Lodge Estate we offer a “pop-up” play about the great 19th century philanthropist who owned the original Holly Lodge estate.
Come and take a part if you wish, or simply enjoy the dramatic events of her life unfolding. The event will be led by local founders of ‘domestic theatre’, Beth Shaw and Martin Bould.
This is a joint event with the Holly Lodge Community Centre, who will host the event.

There’s no need to register – just arrive on the evening!

If you want to park on the estate, you can park below Oakshott Avenue provided that you clearly display:

Where you are visiting (Holly Lodge Community Centre)
Your mobile phone number
The date (5th December 2024)

Leonard Clark
2025-01-21 19:15 - 20:30 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Leonard Clark was one of the most popular poets of the twentieth century for adults and children. Although he lived the last thirty years of his life in Highgate, where he served as a school inspector, much of his best work drew upon his boyhood memories in Gloucestershire. These landscapes inspired some of his best-loved lyrics and drew the admiration of friends such as John Betjeman, Ted Hughes, and Edmund Blunden. This new book is the first selection of Clark’s work for over fifty years.
You will hear talks and readings from the editor Dr John Howlett (Keele University), Leonard’s son Bob Clark and others.

In person in the hall – no need to register just arrive on the evening
Online – use this link to register on Zoom

The Book-makers: A history of the book in 18 remarkable lives - Adam Smyth
2025-02-25 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
The Book-Makers is a celebration of 550 years of the printed book, told through the lives of eighteen extraordinary men and women who took the book in radical new directions: printers and binders, publishers and artists, paper-makers and library founders. This is a story of skill, craft, mess, cunning, triumph, improvisation, and error. Come and hear author Adam Smyth tell us about it.

No need to register – just arrive on the evening

The English Public Library 1850-1939 - Susie Barson
2025-03-18 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Among the many important political and social reforms of the mid-19th century was the Public Libraries Act of 1850. While this allowed municipal boroughs to establish public libraries, few were built until Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. Then, private philanthropy saw the construction of a vast number of libraries, and by 1914, 62 per cent of England’s population lived within a library authority area. Highgate Library which opened in 1906 was one of these.
Susie Barson is one of the authors of this Historic England guide which looks at the external architecture of the libraries built under these and later initiatives, and how they were fitted out and used. Come and hear her talk about it.

No need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Climate Crisis - Farhana Yamin
2025-04-15 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Farhana Yamin is best known as a key architect of the Paris Climate Agreement and for her work as a legal and strategy advisor for small island and vulnerable nations, working on their behalf at international climate negotiations. She has been a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as teaching at several universities. She has written two books on climate change. She is a coordinator of Camden’s Think and Do Community Climate and Eco Action popup.
Unfortunately Justin Rowlatt cannot be with us and we are delighted that Farhana has agreed to be our guest.
Please come along to ask questions and join in the discussion of the many environmental issues facing us.

No need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Deborah Moggach
2025-05-08 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Deborah Moggach has written 20 novels and two books of short stories. Several novels have been adapted for TV and her novel These Foolish Things became the hit film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Tulip Fever also became a film with Judi Dench and Alicia Vikander. She has also adapted other novels and written many screenplays. She has an OBE for services to literature and drama. She is also very amusing and we are delighted to have her as a guest speaker.

No need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Note the new date of this event is 8th May – a change to what was originally advertised.

Celebration - 30 campaigning years 1995 to 2025
2025-06-19 19:30 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Join us to celebrate thirty years of supporting our library, fighting to keep it open and providing monthly events for members.
This is a social event for all our members, with refreshments.

The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz - Anne Sebba
2025-07-03 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Anne Sebba draws on meticulous research and exclusive first hand accounts to tell the astonishing story of the orchestra, its members and the response of other prisoners for the first time. What role could music play in a death camp? Anne Sebba traces questions of deep moral complexity with sensitivity and care.
Come and hear her talk about this book.
You can also read more about the book in this Guardian review

No need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Kind to Women - How The Abortion Act Changed Our Lives
2025-09-11 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
The passing of the 1967 Abortion Act was a pivotal moment for women’s health and women’s lives. The culmination of decades of campaigning, it finally ended the horror of deaths from self-induced and backstreet abortions.
We will be showing the documentary ‘Kind to Women: how the 1967 Abortion Act changed our lives’, followed by a Q & A with its directors Jayne Kavanagh (UCL Medical School) and Lisa Hallgarten and a panel including retired obstetrician and gynaecologist Wendy Savage and Dilys Cossey who was secretary of the Abortion Law Reform Association from 1964-68, and a member of the team which worked to reform the abortion law. Both Wendy and Dilys feature in the film.

No need to register – just arrive on the evening!

Broadway General Manager: the most important role in show business - Peter Bogyo
2025-10-09 19:15 - 21:00 | Highgate Library Hall, Highgate Library Hall, Childrens Corner, Croftdown Road, London, NW5 1HB, United Kingdom
Peter Bogyo is a theatrical General Manager, Executive Producer, Producer of Special Events, and an Author. He has worked on and off Broadway with Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Richard Dreyfuss, Eileen Atkins and many others. He has produced many benefit concerts, raising more than a million dollars.
Come and hear the story of his life in the theatre.

No need to register – just arrive on the evening!
