A recent visit to Auckland provided the opportunity to visit and learn more about several cemeteries – Waikumete, Hillsborough, Symonds Street, O’Neill’s Point, and Mt Victoria (Devonport). Each has been fascinating in its own way, all contain interesting people, headstones and commemorative styles, and they all REEK of history, local and national.
Here are short paragraphs on each of them, and a few photos.
Waikumete Cemetery – the largest in size in New Zealand at 108 hectares, it is the main cemetery for the Auckland region. “Established in 1886, the cemetery provides for a wide range of denominational and cultural groups, and aims to offer a large number of alternative services to the bereaved. Waikumete is one of the largest cemeteries in the Southern Hemisphere and the final resting place for over 70,000 people. It also provides the largest open space environment for passive creation within Waitakere. The cremators were installed in the 1950s and processes in excess of 600 cremations per year. The replacement of the cremators is currently under review.”
There are many different sorts of headstones at Waikumete, particularly in the areas where there are lots of burials of Pacific Islanders.
The Friends of Waikumete recently assisted about 20 people in a "Find A Grave" session to find graves of their family members which they hadn’t previously been able to locate. Well done, the Friends.
Hillsborough Cemetery. Opened by Onehunga Borough in 1916, Hillsborough contains c. 17,000 burials. It slopes downhill from Hillsborough Road to Granny’s Bay in the Manakau Harbour, opposite Mangere Mountain. Its slopes are precipitous and graves are somewhat fragile but there is a good network of paths throughout, some of which are being rebuilt/repaved (October 2015). Among many interesting interments are the man who went over the Niagara Falls in a barrel then during a worldwide promotional tour about his exploits slipped walking in Queen Street Auckland and died not long after of the effects of gangrene. There’s also the founder of the Baha’i Faith in New Zealand, many Sisters of Mercy, and the occasional All Black as well as some notable worthies.
Symonds Street Cemetery – Auckland’s first public cemetery, now under progressive and careful restoration after years of benign neglect and damage from motorway construction some years ago. Hobson lies here, as do many other of New Zealand’s earliest settler citizens. Sited at the top of Queen Street and under the Grafton Bridge it is well worth strolling around.
O’Neill’s Point Cemetery– this cemetery is adjacent to Belmont, between Devonport and Takapuna. Its location means there are a number of soldier recruits from the Cook Islands and other places in the Pacific buried here during WW1, having fallen sick and died while in training at Narrow Neck Camp.
Mt Victoria Cemetery (Devonport) – steep hillsides were no obstacle to early burials in this graveyard which is in three adjacent locations – Anglicans, Catholic, and “the rest” (primarily Presbyterian) on the northern slopes of Mt Victoria.
All are worth a visit by anyone with even a passing interest in the history and heritage of locales captured in cemeteries in perpetuity.
Here are short paragraphs on each of them, and a few photos.
Waikumete Cemetery – the largest in size in New Zealand at 108 hectares, it is the main cemetery for the Auckland region. “Established in 1886, the cemetery provides for a wide range of denominational and cultural groups, and aims to offer a large number of alternative services to the bereaved. Waikumete is one of the largest cemeteries in the Southern Hemisphere and the final resting place for over 70,000 people. It also provides the largest open space environment for passive creation within Waitakere. The cremators were installed in the 1950s and processes in excess of 600 cremations per year. The replacement of the cremators is currently under review.”
There are many different sorts of headstones at Waikumete, particularly in the areas where there are lots of burials of Pacific Islanders.
The Friends of Waikumete recently assisted about 20 people in a "Find A Grave" session to find graves of their family members which they hadn’t previously been able to locate. Well done, the Friends.
Hillsborough Cemetery. Opened by Onehunga Borough in 1916, Hillsborough contains c. 17,000 burials. It slopes downhill from Hillsborough Road to Granny’s Bay in the Manakau Harbour, opposite Mangere Mountain. Its slopes are precipitous and graves are somewhat fragile but there is a good network of paths throughout, some of which are being rebuilt/repaved (October 2015). Among many interesting interments are the man who went over the Niagara Falls in a barrel then during a worldwide promotional tour about his exploits slipped walking in Queen Street Auckland and died not long after of the effects of gangrene. There’s also the founder of the Baha’i Faith in New Zealand, many Sisters of Mercy, and the occasional All Black as well as some notable worthies.
Symonds Street Cemetery – Auckland’s first public cemetery, now under progressive and careful restoration after years of benign neglect and damage from motorway construction some years ago. Hobson lies here, as do many other of New Zealand’s earliest settler citizens. Sited at the top of Queen Street and under the Grafton Bridge it is well worth strolling around.
O’Neill’s Point Cemetery– this cemetery is adjacent to Belmont, between Devonport and Takapuna. Its location means there are a number of soldier recruits from the Cook Islands and other places in the Pacific buried here during WW1, having fallen sick and died while in training at Narrow Neck Camp.
Mt Victoria Cemetery (Devonport) – steep hillsides were no obstacle to early burials in this graveyard which is in three adjacent locations – Anglicans, Catholic, and “the rest” (primarily Presbyterian) on the northern slopes of Mt Victoria.
All are worth a visit by anyone with even a passing interest in the history and heritage of locales captured in cemeteries in perpetuity.
