Coast cemetery to be closed

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32975, 22 July 1972, Page 9

Coast cemetery to be closed

(From Our Own Reporter)

WESTPORT, July 21.

One of two burial grounds at Charleston, on the coast between Greymouth and Westport, the old Nile Hill Cemetery, is to be closed by the Buller County Council.

It was a place of interment of many of the pioneers of the Buller district, mostly people associated with the goldmining industry about a century ago. The cemetery has no trustees and the council says that it would be difficult to find three who would take the responsibility of maintaining the area. The last burial on Nile Hill was in 1951. The council may have all tombstones and plaques removed, however, and re-erec-ted along the front boundary allowing the main section to be cleared and kept mown. The burial ground was commonly known as the Protestant cemetery. It is on the seaward side or the hill, between the Nile River and the Charleston Hotel, the Roman Catholic cemetery on the south of the hill was established much later. The latter cemetery is used occasionally and is marked I at its entrance by the imposing statue of “Our Lady of the Way,” erected by Roman I Catholic parishioners.