Genius beneath our feet

9__Ascension Parish Burial Ground

Genius beneath our feet

The Ascension Burial Ground on Huntingdon Road was originally Cambridge’s country churchyard, opened when the cemeteries in town began to run out of room. The poet Thomas Gray imagined country churchyards housing ‘some mute inglorious Milton’ but there is nothing inglorious about the clamorous reputations of those buried here. The graves contain the remains of some of the greatest intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries.

It is easy to miss the entrance to the cemetery, which lies at the end of a surprisingly long track. This leads to a deconsecrated chapel used by the letter cutter Eric Marland as a studio. The cemetery opens out from this point. It is a modest and strangely neglected place compared with the great cemeteries of Highgate in London and Père Lachaise in Paris, although it can boast almost as many world-famous scientists, astronomers, historians, writers and thinkers.

The roll call of the great minds interred among the 1,500 graves is impressive. It includes 3 Nobel Prize winners, 8 members of the Order of Merit, 22 knights and 9 Masters or Principals of Cambridge colleges. A panel shows where some of their graves can be found. Scientific, academic and social revolutions can be traced through the names of those buried here. They include several members of the Darwin family, but the most-visited grave is that of Ludwig Wittgenstein – a plain, flat stone on which people sometimes leave strange and touching tributes, all of which Eric Marland collects and archives. It is odd to think that this philosopher and mathematician has become the Jim Morrison of the cemetery.

The burial ground is now a City Wildlife Site within a conservation area, and it is managed carefully to maximise the diversity of the plant species found there and to maintain the graves themselves.

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Address All Souls’ Lane, Huntingdon Road, CB3 0EA, +44 (0)1223 315000 | Getting there Citi 5 or 6 from town centre to Storey’s Way or All Souls’ Lane | Hours Mon – Fri 9am – 5pm | Tip Just a little further up Huntingdon Road, off Whitehouse Lane, is the characterful Hotel Felix. Th e Garden Terrace and the Orangery are perfect spots to stop for a quick bite to eat or a traditional English tea.