Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

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Get directions All Souls Lane, Huntingdon Road
Cambridge, City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB3 0EA England

Coordinates: 52.21741, 0.09993
Cemetery ID: 859628

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The church of St Giles and St Peter stands at the junction of Castle Street/Castle Hill with Chesterton Road, but the Ascension Parish Burial Ground,[a church cemetery created when the churchyard became closed to further interments], is off the Huntingdon Road near the junction with Storey's Way in the northwest of Cambridge. It includes the graves of many Cambridge academics and non-conformists of the 19th and early 20th century. A small chapel was also built on the grounds. The one and a half acres of the burial ground were established in 1857, the first burial being in 1869. Today some 2,500 people of every religious denomination and none, are buried in 1,500 plots. It is the final resting place of many city and university dignitaries, scientists, scholars,[including three Nobel prize winners] and 22 Knights of the Realm. It is a designated City Wildlife Site and is part of the Storey's Way Conservation area. In 2005 the plant species present were catalogued and the site is now managed so as to encourage wildlife and habitat diversity, as well as to care for the graves themselves. It is a ‘hidden' part of the busy and rapidly expanding city and remains little known even to people who have lived all their lives in Cambridge.