User:The wub/Lensfield Road Burial Ground

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Lensfield Road, Cambridge, is a residential area with much of its property belonging to neighbouring Cambridge University colleges (Downing, Pembroke). It has historical roots as an ancient Anglo-Saxon burial site. Since the ninth century AD, the Cambridge area has been a popular settlement area for wandering and invading peoples, due to its fertile land and geographical advantages - its proximity, for example, to the coast by river and land. The flat nature of the land has always been agriculturally and militarily advantageous.

The area has seen considerable bloodshed over time. In particular during the Viking invasion of 916 AD many local inhabitants were massacred at the hands of barbaric Scandinavian tribes in their attempts to fend off the invaders. King Godrum II ruled that the dead be buried en masse in communal graves situated just outside the village borders, in an area thought of at the time as an unholy no-man's land. This area is now, after years of development, the site of the relatively recently built Lensfield Road.

It is rumoured to be a site of considerable supernatural activity. Reports have been found dating back to the 1800s, around the time that the area first became urbanised, of unexplained occurrences including spectral sightings and peculiar noises. Such paranormal events may be linked to the ancient burial ground, and also to the church nearby, which was erected in memory of the Cambridge Catholic martyrs of 1535-1681. Legend, albeit unfounded, has it that haunting souls become restless in the area around halloween.