Thanks to Pippa’s precise instructions and her belief that car driving was the way to go, we found our way to Rookwood easily, following those instructions right into the selected parking spot. We also followed up later by having coffee in the cafe, Reflections. Thank you Pip for all that research. It seemed unbelievably difficult, too far, too hard but you eased the way by showing us how to go.
Well, at last we found ourselves in Rookwood Necropolis along with the added bonus of the “Hidden” sculpture exhibition both of which kept us transfixed, interested and thoroughly fascinated for the few hours we were able to wander through just a fraction of the 283 hectares.
Jane guided us from sculpture to sculpture with the aid of her guide-book. While the sculptures sometimes fascinated, the surrounded area dominated, coloured as it was with emerging spring colour; graves were either highly polished shiny or grey crumbling with age, a sense of decay mixed with modern carved glitzed marble, structures massive or tiny, some buried sunken obliquely into the ground, topsy turvy. There were monuments, mausoleums, symbols of every religion, rows of precise granite memories edged by another section of unruly disorder. Somehow it all hung together in the most charming way with scattered monuments, chapels, urns, obelisks, shelters, beautiful trees, birds, dale up, dale down, vistas, views, Few of us had ever been to this monumental place, few of us could guess the enormity, the size, nearly a million internments.
Established in 1868, it is protected by an act of Parliament.
We didn’t see the the original 81 hectares which is subject to a Permanent Conservation Order “represents the largest and one of the finest surviving examples of a Victorian public cemetery anywhere in the world” It was designed as a “grand gardenesque style” once fashionable. Surely we need return, there are still another 200 plus hectares for us to explore!
Walkers: Pippa, Marie-Claire, Jane, Kate, Carolle
