The Shadow on Swain’s Lane

Beneath the gnarled yews of Highgate Cemetery, where London’s dead sleep under crumbling stone, a presence stirs each Easter, its shadow long and cold as the grave. In the spring of 1970, whispers of a vampire—a gaunt figure with ember-red eyes—swept through Hampstead’s fog, igniting fear and fascination along Swain’s Lane. Not beast nor ghost, it watched from the dark, feeding on dread as much as blood, while mortals hunted and trembled. This is the tale of Clara Finch, who scoffed at the Highgate Vampire’s legend until one Good Friday night, when the fog parted, and she saw what no story could prepare her for.