HIGHGATE, a chapelry partly in the parish of ST-PANCRAS, Holborn division of the hundred of OSSULSTONE, but chiefly in the parish of HORNSEY, Finsbury division of the same hundred, county of MIDDLESEX, 4 miles (N.) from London. The population is returned with the respective parishes in which it is situated. This village is said to have taken its name from a toll-gate erected on the brow of the hill, near the site of an ancient hermitage, by one of the bishops of London, on the construction of a new road leading from the metropolis towards the north of England. The hill on which it stands is four hundred feet above the summit of St. Paul's cathedral, and it affords many extensive and beautiful prospects of London and the neighbouring country. In the village and its vicinity are several handsome houses and detached villas; the streets, which are not paved, are lighted with oil, and the inhabitants are supplied with water chiefly from wells. After various attempts to render the ascent up Highgate hill, over which the old road passes, less difficult and dangerous, by raising the road in some parts, and lowering it in others, which produced only a partial improvement, a scheme was projected in the year 1809, by Mr. Robert Vazie, an engineer, for forming a subterraneous arched tunnel, twenty-four feet wide, eighteen high, and three hundred yards in length, through the body of the hill, and an act of parliament was obtained, incorporating the proprietors a body politic, by the style of " The Highgate Archway Company," and authorising them to raise £40,000, by transferable shares of £50 each, with an additional sum of £20,000, if necessary; the work was commenced, and the tunnel constructed to the length of about one hundred and thirty yards, when the whole fell in with a tremendous crash, on the morning of the 13th of April, 1812. The plan was then altered, and a road in the line of the intended tunnel was formed; this road, by which4 upwards of one hundred yards are saved, and the hill and village both avoided, was opened on .the 21st of August, 1813: it passes under an arch, over which Hornsey-lane, an ancient cross road, is continued. The foundation stone of the arch was laid October 31st, 1812; it is built of stone, flanked with brick-work, and surmounted by three semi-arches supporting a bridge, with open battlements of stone, along which the lane passes, and is about thirty-six feet in height, and half as much in width. During the progress of the excavations for the tunnel, various fossils and other geological remains were discovered in the strata, among which were pyrites, fossil teeth, petrified fish and fruit, and a variety of shells, petrified wood, and a peculiar resinous substance, emitting, on being rubbed, an odour similar to that of amber, being also slightly electric, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, spirit of turpentine, and aether. The disastrous issue of the tunnel was made the subject of a dramatic entertainment, called "The Highgate Tunnel, or the Secret Arch," introduced at one of the London theatres. Highgate is within the jurisdiction of a court of requests held in Kingsgate-street, Holborn, for the recovery of debts under 40s. The chapel, which is dedicated to St. Michael, was founded as a chapel of ease to the church at Hornsey, prior to 1565, when the Bishop of London, as lord of the manor of Hornsey, and proprietor of the chapel, granted it, with other property, in trust, to Sir Roger Cholmeley, for the endowment of a free grammar school, to which it has ever since been attached, the schoolmaster being the minister of the chapel. An act of parliament has recently been passed for the erection of a new church, and for making Highgate a separate district. Here are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyan Methodists. In 1565, Queen Elizabeth issued letters patent for the foundation of a free grammar school, by Sir Roger Cholmeley, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, who endowed it with landed property vested in six wardens, or governors; the present income is about £600 per annum, from which the master receives a salary of £200, but the school is conducted by an assistant with a small stipend; in 1819 a new school-room was erected, at an expense of £697, in which about one hundred boys are instructed on the National system; in 1822, proceedings were instituted in the Court of Chancery against the governors and the master, to compel them to restore the grammar school to its original purpose; and, inconsequence of the decree of the Lord Chancellor, that the institution should be again made a free grammar school, it is expected that the National school will be removed to some other part of the village, and the free school re-established, according to the directions of its founders. A charity school for girls was established in 1719, in which twenty-six girls are educated, twenty of them being also clothed from the funds of the charity, which include £35 per annum, permanent revenue, and about £75 per annum, arising from voluntary contributions; the mistress has a salary of £26 per annum, besides occasional gratuities. In Hornsey-lane is a National school for girls belonging to Highgate and Holloway; and there is also an infant school. Almshouses for six poor women were founded pursuant to a bequest by Sir John Wollaston, in 1658, and endowed with a rent-charge of £18. 10. j and six more almshouses for poor women, with an endowment of £30 per annum, were founded by Edward Pauncefort, Esq., who rebuilt the preceding almshouses, and by will, in 1723, left property for the support of this charity and the girls school, with £10 per annum to the minister, which, with other benefactions to the almspeople, is vested in the governors of the free school. An hospital for lepers was founded on the lower part of Highgate hill, by William Poole, yeoman of the crown in the reign of Edward IV., which continued until the time of Henry VIII., and is supposed to have occupied a site now called Lazarets, or Lazarcot-field, near Whittington-stone.