Tidying A Cemetery

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31117, 21 July 1966, Page 14

Tidying A Cemetery

The Christchurch City Council has decided on admirable measures to improve the Barbadoes Street Cemetery. The plan to remove useless railings and masonry that obstruct the maintenance of the ground and to retain recognisable memorial stones is a sound compromise. The continuation of the present dismal and disrespectful disorder cannot be acceptable to citizens, and least of all to those whose relatives or forbears are buried there. The plan may even induce some to renovate surviving headstones. It is unlikely to evoke protests and, if it does, the scheme is sufficiently flexible to accommodate any reasonable requests from persons with an interest in the cemetery. The proposed use of the land behind the sexton’s house as a depot for some of the Reserves Department equipment need not detract from the general improvement of the area. The council is seeking much less authority than is available to it under the Burial and Cremation Act, which provides for the total clearance of closed cemeteries. No-one should be displeased that anything of demonstrable importance will be preserved. All graves, named and unnamed, will be retained in a tidy reserve that should inspire the respect the present cemetery fails to induce.