FHRC Friends of Histon Road Cemetery

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FHRC Friends of Histon Road Cemetery

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Histon Road Cemetery is a Grade II* listed Victorian cemetery in north Cambridge, a place of remembrance, spirituality, history and nature.

A place of remembrance, spirituality, history and nature

Histon Road Cemetery is a Grade II* listed Victorian cemetery that lies between Histon Road and Victoria Road in north Cambridge. It was established in 1843 by a group of local Nonconformist businessmen and is the final and best surviving example of the work of leading Victorian horticulturalist and garden designer, John Claudius Loudon, a celebrity in his day. Fine headstones and monuments were erected over the course of time and a stroll around the site reveals many familiar names associated with the city. The Chapel that was originally in the centre of the cemetery was sadly demolished but the the splendid Victorian Lodge remains (now a private residence). The many trees, shrubs and meadow areas provide an important haven for wildlife and the cemetery is managed with this in mind. Parking: There is free on-street parking in streets to the north of Victoria Road, if you can find a space. The nearest "proper" car park is Castle Hill Car Park which is very nearby but you do have to pay https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/castle-hill-car-park

The aim of the Friends group, working closely with Cambridge City Council, is to protect and enhance Histon Road Cemetery for the public benefit as a place of remembrance, spirituality, history and nature. We hope you will agree this is a special place and that you will join us as a “Friend” to help care for and preserve it. Just £5 a year brings you three colourful and fascinating newsletters with information about the graves, the people they commemorate and the work going on to look after it all. You can join in with gardening and wildlife conservation, and meet your delightful like-minded neighbours while you’re at it! See our website for more details www.histonroadcemetery.org
or email [email protected]

29/10/2026

Please be careful - fake web and pumpkins can be harmful to birds and hedgehogs.

22/10/2026

Ahead of our Remembrance Gathering on Wednesday 11th November, our monthly walk this coming Sunday 25th October will focus on the war graves in the Cemetery.

Meet in "Chapel Grove" (the central oval) at 3pm as usual.

14/10/2026

Grass raking 3-4pm this coming Sunday 18th October to encourage wildflowers.

The City Council team has been cutting the grass in the Cemetery yesterday and today so it would be great if as many of us as possible could meet up on Sunday afternoon to rake the meadow areas - clearing away the grass clippings helps the wildflowers thrive.

Meet at 3pm in "Chapel Grove" (the central oval). Please bring gardening gloves and if you can, a grass rake, though we do have some spares.

We hope lots of you can come - many hands make light work, and it's really nice to meet up!

04/10/2026

Our Autumn 2026 Newsletter is now out! Members receive three Newsletters a year with interesting biographies of people buried in the Cemetery and other news - join us for £5 p.a.

Email [email protected] for details.

21/09/2026

Our Open Cambridge event yesterday was great - thank you to everyone who helped and everyone who came! Especially Professor Mary Beard who, as our new Patron, launched proceedings with her customary warmth and enthusiasm and also kindly arranged some splendid weather. Lots of people joined us to discover Everyday Histories, the theme of the festival, and enjoyed activities like sculpting clay lettering to really appreciate how much skill is involved in carving actual stone! Memorial and nature tours attracted plenty of interest as did the opportunity to find out if we have details of people buried in the Cemetery who used to live in the house you live in now. Roll on next year!

National Federation of Cemetery Friends

16/09/2026

As the grass turns back to green and the Autumn flowers start to peep through, FHRC's new Patron, Professor Mary Beard, will be launching our Open Cambridge event at 11am this coming Sunday 20th September.

The Open Cambridge theme this year is Everyday Histories. As a Nonconformist cemetery in what was historically a very deprived part of town, Histon Road Cemetery is full of such histories of everyday and not-so-everyday people. Discover more on Sunday, with displays, tours and other activities.
https://www.opencambridge.cam.ac.uk/events/everyday-histories-histon-road-cemetery

25/08/2026

Our monthly walk is this coming Sunday 30th August - meet at 3pm in "Chapel Grove" as usual (the central oval). All welcome.

13/08/2026

On Sunday 20th September we are once again taking part in Open Cambridge, with displays, tours and activities from 11-4.

We will have displays about the Cemetery, tours around it and craft activities and we are very proud to say our new Patron, Professor Mary Beard herself, will be opening the event at 11am. Come along and discover more about us!

Discover everyday histories in Histon Road Cemetery in the north of the city, listed Grade II* by Historic England (the highest grade a cemetery can be) as the best surviving example of a "garden cemetery" designed by polymath and leading horticulturalist and garden designer of his day, John Claudius Loudon. As a Nonconformist cemetery, it holds the remains of those refused entry to university who turned their considerable talents elsewhere. It also served one of the poorest parts of the town at that time and a wide variety of everyday trades and local families are remembered here: entrepreneurs, artists, social reformers, domestic servants, shopkeepers, tradesmen, missionaries. We have stories of local figures whose names will be familiar to older residents and some whose names are known across the world - the family of Alice Todd, whose husband Charles “Telegraph” Todd helped connect Australia to the rest of the world and after whom Alice Springs is named; and links to Captain Bligh of The Bounty, the co-author of Monty Python’s "Jabberwocky", a Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medallist, the turnkey of Cambridge prison, philanthropists and campaigners for the poor and for workers' and women's rights. Family names on tombs and vaults – Thoday, Mitcham, Sturton – connect Cambridge past with Cambridge present, and the memorials to local people lost in war remind us of the debt we owe.

Histon Road Cemetery is also a beautiful environment managed for nature and wildlife.

11:30 History Tour
12:30 Nature Tour
14:00 History Tour
15:00 Nature Tour

https://www.opencambridge.cam.ac.uk/events/everyday-histories-histon-road-cemetery

https://histonroadcemetery.org/

The full Open Cambridge 2026 programme is at https://www.opencambridge.cam.ac.uk/events and a pdf version can be viewed and downloaded at https://www.opencambridge.cam.ac.uk/open-cambridge-2026-pdf-programme

Open Cambridge is part of Heritage Open Days https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/

National Federation of Cemetery Friends

05/08/2026

New month, new butterflies and moths to look out for in your gardens and local green spaces! 🦋🌻

See how many you can spot in the Big Butterfly Count, running until 9 August 👉 https://butrfli.es/3SVFepj

26/07/2026

We are honoured and delighted to tell you that Professor Mary Beard has agreed to be Honorary Patron of Friends of Histon Road Cemetery!

Earlier this year, Professor Beard featured in the Observer newspaper's "Observer Walk", in which she was interviewed while walking through Histon Road Cemetery and on to the Ascension Burial Ground in Huntingdon Road:
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/mary-beard-the-observer-walk

It was clear Professor Beard knows our Cemetery very well and has a great affection for it. With her longstanding connection to Cambridge and exceptional contribution to public understanding of history and heritage, we believe her reputation and profile will help shine a light on the Cemetery and reinforce the importance and value of FHRC membership.

We are so proud and grateful that Professor Beard has agreed to take on this role, especially in this 20th anniversary year of our founding.

The rock star scholar strolls through Cambridge’s graveyards while discussing what ancient Rome teaches us about Donald Trump, how a piece of bread sparked her love of history, and writing job references for trolls

Address

62 Histon Road

CB43LE

Website

http://www.histonroadcemetery.org/

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