Marx’s tomb at risk as blight weakens trees in cemetery

THE tomb of Karl Marx is among the graves at risk of being “whacked” by falling trees infested with pests at Highgate Cemetery, the site’s chief executive has warned.

Ash and plane trees have been allowed to flourish at the north London resting place and tourist attraction, to enhance an i mage of “romantic neglect”.

But they are now being blighted by fungi and unpredictable weather made more common by climate change.

Pest-infested and weakened boughs are at risk of toppling on burial monuments including the towering tomb of the famous communist thinker Marx.

To prevent future damage the cemetery has launched an appeal to help protect memorials threatened by rampant and unstable vegetation while still maintaining the beauty of the wooded site.

Dr Ian Dungavell, chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, said: “Many people would quite like Karl Marx to be whacked on the head by a falling branch.

“But whatever you think about Marx politically, and as a cemetery we’re agnostic, his monument is Grade I listed. He is someone we have to look after.”

Fungi ash dieback and massaria disease, aided by warmer temperatures due to the impact of global climate change, are increasingly weakening the cemetery’s predominating ash and plane trees.

The challenge at the Victorian cemetery is “not just about Karl Marx getting decapitated by a branch”, but the costly and potentially damaging removal of infected trees entangled in graves.

The friends group has launched a competition for landscape architects to devise a new-look cemetery, which will diversify the risky ash trees with those of other species.

Conservationists want to reduce shade, which causes damaging damp and promotes ivy, which enmeshes itself among tombstones.