A Cambridge University historian is drumming up support for the preservation of a tiny burial ground that is the final resting place of eminent thinkers including Ludwig Wittgenstein, physicist John Cockroft, and astronomer John Couch Adams.

Mark Goldie, an expert on the philosopher John Locke, has become increasingly fascinated by the brilliance and diversity of those who lie beneath the soil at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, a romantically overgrown graveyard reached down a lane off Huntingdon Road, Cambridge.

He will be giving a tour of the half-forgotten site and its illustrious residents on Saturday as part of Open Cambridge, a weekend of free talks, tours and other events for the general public.

Visitors will find themselves navigating round tilting headstones, peering through yew hedges and delving deep into ivy-covered corners to look at monuments that mark the lives of writers such as poet Frances Cornford, philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe and essayist Desmond MacCarthy, as well as a clutch of other Charles Darwin descendants.

The tour is part of a wider effort by Dr. Goldie to bring the burial ground to wider public attention and protect its special character. He has also compiled a guide, called A Cambridge Necropolis, which gives brief details of the lives of the eminent scientists, pioneering thinkers and inspirational teachers who are buried there.

A group, Friends of the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, of which he is a founding member, has also been set up.

“I became aware of this gem of a place because it’s so close to Churchill College, where I’m a Fellow,” Dr. Goldie said. “The more I found out, the more there was to discover. It’s a place that tells the story of Cambridge over the past 150 years: the rise of new disciplines, the struggle of women to be admitted, the opening up to all religions and none. I like to think that there’s more IQ lying in this acre than in any other in the country.”

“We’re constantly making new discoveries. Only the other day, a visitor pointed out that William Halse Rivers, who is buried here, was the father of psychoanalysis and a key character in Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy. Then there’s Frederick Hopkins, the biochemist who discovered vitamins.”

“But it’s Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose grave is suitably modest and one of the hardest to find, who remains the greatest draw for visitors. They come from all over the world to pay homage to him and his extraordinary life.”

Consecrated by the Church of England in 1861, the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground was established to serve the parishes of St. Peter and St. Giles – the two very different churches at the bottom of Castle Hill in Cambridge. Those laid to rest within its walls are an eclectic mix of town and gown, with academics rubbing shoulders with Cambridge residents, their headstones in charming disarray. Today it serves the combined Parishes of St. Giles, St. Augustine’s and St. Luke’s.

The Burial Ground’s small chapel is now the workshop of American-born lettering artist, Eric Marland, who has become unofficial guardian of the surrounding plots. He is able to point visitors to examples of inscriptions by artists such as Eric Gill, David Kindersley and Keith Bailey – all of whom have strong Cambridge links.

Marland has built up a small archive of items left on Wittgenstein’s grave, which is currently marked by a pile of pennies left by visitors. Items include drawings, poems and a copy of Mickey Spillane’s The Long Wait left in tribute to the great man’s enjoyment of American gangster stories.

“You might think it would be a gloomy place, slightly morbid, but actually it’s a little oasis of calm and contemplation. I love the fact that people are drawn to the place and the way it connects them – many of the people who visit are on some kind of personal quest,” Marland said.

A year ago a wild-looking young man called Michal Barbus appeared at dusk in search of Wittgenstein’s plot. Marland spotted the visitor’s sketchbook which was filled with beautiful pen and ink drawings of Parisian architecture and decided to commission him to make a series of drawings of the cemetery.

It transpired that Barbus was a graduate of philosophy and fine art from Slovakia. Some of his sketches will be used to illustrate a new edition of the Mark Goldie’s Cambridge Necropolis once funding has been secured to publish it. Barbus now lives and works at the Emmaus Community near Waterbeach and is continuing to draw in his spare time.

“It was wonderful to discover, in such a serendipitous way, a young artist with the ability to capture so poignantly this little city of the Cambridge dead,” said Goldie.

Mark Goldie’s tour of the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground this Saturday is fully booked but the Burial Ground is open daily. Many of the other events on the Open Cambridge programme are available on a drop-in basis. For details go to opencambridge.cam.ac.uk.

To find out more about the Friends of the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground email Rev Dr Janet Bunker janet_ascension@yahoo.co.uk or phone 01223 229976.
 


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