Waimairi Cemetery bookings increase

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 14

Waimairi Cemetery bookings increase

People have been booking burials at the traditional tombstone Waimairi Cemetery in increasing numbers over the last few months as its closing draws near. The cemetery, which is on Grahams Road, has left only 90 full-size plots and 43 quarter-plots (for infants and ashes). At the present rate of plot sales, it will be full in four months.

In October, 34 plots were sold. Eighteen were used for first interments, seven for second interments, nine for quarter-plots, and four were reserved. That was 10 more than for the same month last year, when eight were used for new interments, 16 for second interments, and two were reserved.

Waimairi District superintendent of reserves, Mr Graeme Nind, said he thought that the increase in sales might have occurred

because people knew the cemetery was filling up rapidly. The only other traditional tombstone cemetery in the district is at Belfast. It and the district’s other cemetery, the verdant Avonhead Park Cemetery, still have plenty of space, and plots are selling at a far slower rate than at Waimairi.

Mr Nind said that people still seemed to, be quite “traditional” in their choice of burial ground. The well kept nature of the Waimairi Cemetery might also account for its popularity, he said.

Since the Avonhead Park Cemetery was opened in 1983, 82 of the 3000 plots available had been sold.

The Belfast Cemetery had attracted about five plot buyers since it was reopened in September, 1984.

The reopened section has space for about 1800 plots.

Mr Nind said that he thought the Avonhead Park Cemetery, with its expanse of grass and trees, was very attractive compared with the old-style cemetery with its tombstones and headstones.

Although there were no headstones denoting graves, the Park Cemetery did have a straight-forward system of marking so that people could find where graves were. V A memorial room also had a plan of the grave sites, as well as memorial beams with the names of those buried, and containers for flowers.

Though the Waimairi Cemetery was almost full, the council still offered people a choice of traditional or non-traditional burial grounds, he said.