Original plan as published by Loudon in 1843 in the Gardener's Magazine.
The site is approximately 1 hectare in area (1.25 ha in some sources). Loudon used plans for the Histon Road cemetery as illustrative of his views on cemetery design. Research has indicated that the actual work carried out on the cemetery, which opened in 1843 (the year of his death), does not correspond closely with Loudon's announcements.[4]
The cemetery embodies Loudon's most important ideas on cemetery design and is an early example of the grid pattern layout adopted for many later cemeteries.[4]
The buildings were by the architect Edward Buckton Lamb; Lamb had been an associate of Loudon from the early 1830s, when Loudon employed him as a draughtsman.[5] They comprised a chapel (demolished in the 1950s) and a Lodge that is now a private residence.[6][7] The chapel with its "very elegant stained windows" was mentioned in the diary of Joseph Romilly. The design as built was Gothic and made of white brick, not in the Italian style put forward by Lamb and Loudon.[1][4] The chapel contained a memorial dated 1851 to Ebenezer Foster (1777-1851) and his wife Elizabeth, by James Rattee.[8]
Histon Road Cemetery was one of the first British cemeteries open to all.[10] The first was Rosary Cemetery, Norwich (1821).[11]
The cemetery was initially (1843) the property of the Cambridge Cemetery Company which had been set up on 12 October 1842, by Robert Peters of Downing Street, Cambridge;[12][13] there had been calls in the local press for more burial grounds for a decade. The policy of the Company made no religious conditions on burials.[14]
Control passed to the Borough of Cambridge in 1935. The decision to demolish the chapel because of the cost of necessary repairs was taken in 1957.[13] From 2007 the cemetery has been run by Cambridge City Council (Open Spaces) working with its Friends group.[15]
There have been over 8000 burials at the cemetery. A listing of monumental inscriptions was made by Lucy Joan Slater (unpublished, deposited at Cambridge Record Office).[4]
^Elliott, Brent; Loudon, J. C.; Meller, Hugh (Spring 1982). "Reviewed work: On the Laying out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries". Garden History. 10 (1): 92–94. doi:10.2307/1586855. JSTOR1586855.
^Cooper, Charles Henry; Cooper, John William (1 May 1846). "Annals of Cambridge". Cambridge, Printed by Warwick and co. – via Internet Archive.
Curl, James Stevens (1983). "John Claudius Loudon and the Garden Cemetery Movement". Garden History. 11 (2): 133–156. doi:10.2307/1586841. JSTOR1586841.