Cemetery land now for sale

Press, 25 September 1982, Page 12

Cemetery land now for sale

The former cemetery in Withells Road, Avonhead. has been cleared, the bodies buried elsewhere, and - the land has been put on the market. ' The bodies were removed in November last year after the passing of the Methodist Church Withells Road Empowering Act. introduced in Parliament by the member for Yaldhurst. Mr M. A. Connelly, in December, 1980. The removal of the bodies was supervised by Mr Michael Trotter, of the Canterbury Museum, and Mr K. Pettengel. of the Health Department, with assistance from Mr A. C. Loach, of the Historic Places Trust. The remains were stored at the Canterbury Museum for safe keeping and identification until April this year when they were reburied in a common grave, marked by a memorial stone recording the names of those known, at the Waimairi Cemetery in Grahams Road. Few of the original graves had headstones. The headstone of Mr Charles Boon has been placed on his wife’s grave at the Yaldhurst cemetery. The headstones of twc others have, with the permission of relatives, been buried in the common grave.

The remains of Mr Michael Potts, the second person to be buried at Withells Road, have been reburied at the new lawn

cemetery in Hawthornden Road. It is thought that the former cemetery had contained 12 bodies but. because of the degree of decay, the number is in doubt. The Rev. I. L. Clarke said that the Church had decided to close the cemetery because it had become unkempt and had long been out of use. The last burial there had been in 1894. The Withells Road property. comprising 988 square metres, will be sold for residential use and the money used to defray the costs of the clearing. The balance will be used by the Methodist Church of New Zealand, as the annual conference decides.