Waverley Cemetery – Sydney, Australia - Atlas Obscura
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Waverley Cemetery

Sydney, Australia

A self-funded cemetery with a long list of inhabitants. 

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Waverley Cemetery Winston Yang/CC BY-SA 2.5
Waverley Cemetery Winston Yang/CC BY-SA 2.5
Angel of Death Waverley Cemetry Michael Rogers (Atlas Obscura User)
Monuments Waverley Cemetry Michael Rogers (Atlas Obscura User)
Monuments Waverley Cemetry Michael Rogers (Atlas Obscura User)
Looking east acrooss the Pacific Ocean Waverley Cemetry Michael Rogers (Atlas Obscura User)
A panorama of the cemetery. Jason7825/CC BY 3.0
Waverley Cemetery Sardaka/CC BY 3.0
Memorial of Juanita Nielsen, Mark Foy family mausoleum. Sardaka/CC BY 3.0
Beautiful day at a beautiful place richarsl143 (Atlas Obscura User)
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The Waverley Cemetery opened in 1877 and is located on top of the cliffs at Bronte in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

The cemetery is notable for its largely intact Victorian and Edwardian monuments. It contains the graves of many significant Australians including the poets Henry Lawson and Dorothea Mackellar, test cricketer Victor Trumper, and Olympic gold medal swimmer Sarah (Fanny) Durack.

Funerals are conducted Monday to Saturday. The cemetery is self-funded, deriving its income from interments – including burial, cremation, memorials and mausolea – of which there has been over 86,000. Waverley Cemetery was used during the filming of the 1979 Mel Gibson film, Tim. The Cemetery was designed to function along similar lines to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

Update October 2, 2017: After a storm in June 2016, the cemetery’s walkway was damaged. Restorations began September 2016, but the cemetery is closed to vehicles (and some areas may be closed) until repairs are completed.

 

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