David Farrant (1946 – 2019) was a British paranormal investigator, best known for his involvement in the case of the Highgate ‘vampire’.
David authored many books about his findings. Please get in touch if you would like to be informed when they are reissued.
This website is maintained by David’s wife Della.
Decades before shows such as Most Haunted became popular, David Farrant and his organisation, The British Psychic and Occult Society, were investigating psychic phenomena using traditional – and sometimes occultic – methods.
Read more about David’s paranormal world, from the 1960s through to the 1990s.
As David Farrant was at pains to point out, especially in later life, there WAS no Highgate ‘vampire’.
But there certainly is, as he put it, an ‘unexplained phenomenon’ at Highgate Cemetery in North London, which he saw himself in 1969.
See also posts from David’s Blog which reference the entity – and the decades of debacle which ensued from that sighting.
Throughout his life David Farrant contributed to thousands of radio broadcasts and documentaries. We have archived some so you can enjoy them here.
If you have any old tapes or videos of David which you can’t see on this site, we’d love to hear from you.
Here you will find hundreds of clippings, covering David Farrant’s involvement with witchcraft, his arrest and imprisonment, and his paranormal investigations.
These scans form a fraction of the entire collection. If there is an article you are looking for, about anything relating to David, please do get in touch and I’ll what I can find in the archive.
Della.
David was certainly not camera-shy. Here you will find seven galleries of images taken between 1948 and 2016.
If you would like to use any of these images of David, please do get in touch – they remain my copyright and are not in the public domain. You might even get a high-res jpeg for your trouble.
Della (Farrant).
Just a few items of interest which had nowhere else to go!
A flashback to one of David’s comedic, profound or quizzical blog entries. Dive into the archives to find more gems.
I met my friend Drew again today, the TV guy from Yorkshire. Had not seen him since last year and we had a lot to
Keep checking back.
David Farrant’s autobiographies
and his many books about the paranormal
will be available again soon.
5 Responses
Hi David,
Hope you are well and in good health.I’ve finally plucked up the courage to write to you after following you and your writings over the past couple of years.I used to live in the Girdlestone Estate back in ’75, at the back of the Whittington.I and a friend used to go to Highgate Cemetary almost on a daily basis in school holidays etc.I think i must of been about eleven or twelve at the time.The gothic grandeur of the place was simply the place to be at that age.
We had had heard,through newspapers and magazines that a so-called”vampire” had roamed in the cemetary which made it all the more exciting,hoping to catch site of him but,of course, we never did.School boy dreams i guess!The place was very over-run in ’75 almost to the point of vandalism.I guess it was all the black magic rituals and people just walking through the gates with the intent on doing damage that made it look like that.
Anyway back in 1990 i had a nervous breakdown and ended up in the Whittington for a few months to recover.I used to got to the cemetary for theraputic relaxation and it seemed to be looking a lot better even back then.
I haven’t read any of your books yet but am thinking of ordering a few from Amazon.I would really like to hear your account of the “vampire” legend from you who was there the first time and not just hear-say from people who don’t even know you and the tons of garbage written about you over the last forty years!
Anyway i’m rambling.It’s good to talk to you and look forward to reading your books with interest.
David
Fantastic photograph, it was worth sitting in the dark for all that time, even if I did have to wear shades for the flashlights!
Thanks David for that interesting account. It is always refreshing to get genuine accounts, when many others – as I believe you point out – are only concerned with sensationalism . . . and ‘vampire’ sensationalism at that!
I would also have to agree that the Friends of Highgate Cemetery” did a good restoration job after they took over. They prevented most of the wanton vandalism for one thing, and deterred cranks from just wandering in there at night.
Anyway, just to welcome you here and please do post further if you want. (I have been accused of neglecting my Blog, but the truth is I have been finishing another book, so just not had so much free opportunity).
Please do order anything from Amazon (or anywhere else) if you want to. Just contact me personally if you have any problems in this respect. If you mark your post “personal” in the latter respect, then of course I would not publish it.
Thanks again for your interest, and good to learn we are both ‘local’!
For the moment,
David (Farrant)
For Della,
Yes I know Marcos’s photography was a little different; especially for me having to keep absolutely still for each shot for 10 seconds at a time. But you cooked a marvellous meal (as did Marcos and Crystal) so I think everybody was happy!
David
Thank you Christine,
But all I really did was just sit there having to keep perfectly still. Not easy when you know there’s a glass of wine nearby just waiting to be ‘reached at’! Seriously, though, Marcos is quite gifted in that sort of photography. Well he must have liked it as he’s using it in his next (French) book for next year.
Hope everything’s well with you, and to see you again soon in the future,
David