Histon Road Cemetery
A Grade II* garden cemetery of 1843 off Histon Road, tied to the landscape designer John Claudius Loudon.
Histon Road Cemetery lies off Histon Road in north Cambridge and was formerly known as the Cambridge General Cemetery. It opened in 1843 and is a Grade II* entry on the national historic parks and gardens register. The site covers about one hectare.
A Loudon design
The cemetery is one of just three designs connected with the landscape writer John Claudius Loudon. He used its plan as an example in his 1843 book on laying out and managing cemeteries. Later research suggests the finished cemetery did not follow his published announcements very closely. The register entry calls it an early case of the grid layout that many later cemeteries adopted.
Edward Buckton Lamb, once employed by Loudon as a draughtsman, was the architect of the buildings. The white-brick Gothic chapel was demolished in the 1950s, but the lodge and the gates survive and are Grade II listed. The lodge is now a private house.
Who is buried here
The Cambridge Cemetery Company, founded in 1842, placed no religious conditions on burial, so burial was open to everyone, an early step for British cemeteries. The Borough of Cambridge took it over in 1935, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission looks after the graves of twelve First World War and six Second World War servicemen and women. More than 8,000 burials have taken place. Those buried include Mary Bateson (1865-1906), Charles Edmund Brock (1870-1938) and the sculptor Henry Wiles (1838-1930).
Practical notes
Cambridge City Council runs the cemetery together with a Friends group. Opening arrangements are not stated in the sources used here, so check with the council before visiting.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
