Open House — Lost Girls

A talk about the connection between an unmarked grave in Highgate Cemetery and the former London Diocesan Penitentiary in nearby North Hill, a home for fallen women. Rowan Lennon’s research into the lives of six girls branded as prostitutes, whose burial place this is, led to other discoveries, one of which is that the poet Christina Rossetti had volunteered at the home. Rowan considers the stories of these girls — lost to history as victims of sexual abuse — to be as important as those of any other person buried in the Cemetery.