MALDON CEMETERY

80 MALDON-SHELBOURNE ROAD MALDON, MOUNT ALEXANDER SHIRE

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Victorian Heritage Register

maldon Cemetery Oct 2010

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • History

    MALDON CEMETERY - History

    CONTEXTUAL HISTORY

    In 1853 gold was discovered at the Tarrangower Diggings, and 20,000 miners including an estimated 2000 Chinese descended on the area. A tent town sprang up adjacent to the diggings at the present town centre originally known as 'The Springs'. The township, which was surveyed the following year, was named Maldon after the town of Essex, England. The townspeople were mainly from Cornwall, Wales, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, California and China.
    
    Maldon became one of Victoria's richest quartz goldfields, being second only to Bendigo. In the early 1860s veins of quartz containing large nuggets of gold were discovered, making Maldon an important regional town. Cornish tin miners and Welsh coal miners experienced in underground mining converged on the town. Unlike the diggers of the first alluvial rush, the quartz miners were wage-earners. The Chinese at Maldon, as elsewhere, mined the tailings of alluvial diggers, and most lived in separate camps. By the 1860s many either left the town or took up other occupations such as market gardening. The last Chinese left Maldon in 1928.
    
    Today Maldon retains excellent evidence of its gold history, from the rush of 1853, through a depression and subsequent quartz-crushing boom in 1859-60, followed by two decades of settled prosperity.

    HISTORY OF PLACE

    The first known burials in Maldon were in a burial ground near the site of the Methodist Chapel in Chapel Street. It is not known how many burials there were: in 1858 alone there were eighty-three.

    The present Cemetery was reserved in 1861. Because of the undisciplined nature of most burials at that time a Cemetery Trust was appointed. The original grant of 20 acres was gazetted a Cemetery Reserve on 27 February 1878. The present site covers 16 acres, four acres being on the granite area.

    The newly-elected Cemetery Trust at its first meeting requested one member, William Falla Smith, then the acting Shire Secretary, to design a garden setting with drives and pathways. The first plan (now lost) was dated January 1861.

    In 1861 Council ordered that the Chapel ground in the town be closed, burials there to cease from April and remains to be removed to the new cemetery. A removal agent was appointed and the cost for each removal and re-interment was £5. The old burial ground was levelled, edging stones were removed, the land was surveyed and Chapel Street and residential lots were created. Not all graves however were removed, and a lone grave from 1854 is thought to remain in Gold Street.

    There is evidence that some burials had taken place in the new cemetery before the land was gazetted. A number of Chinese were buried near the funerary tower. There were well over fifty graves by 1862. Those graves were in a disorderly pattern and when the re-interments took place in 1861-2 the new arrivals followed the already existing pattern.

    Just under two hectares were cleared and fenced, and in accordance with the plan, paths were laid out and the oval driveway begun. When the new plan began to be executed earlier graves that were out of line were levelled and pathways were formed across them. The new oval-shaped drive obliterated all earlier denominational burials, including the Chinese, and it appears that the work had been in progress for some days before the towns-people learned of it, which created a furore. People were told (1863) to 'remove your dead to the designated area, remove stone slabs and clean up the site. Work will begin on Monday and the path and gutters will continue'.

    The Sexton's Lodge was built in 1866 with James Flannigan appointed the first sexton.. The brick gutters were begun at about the same time. The bricks were supplied by Wageners, Brickmakers of Maldon.

    By 1864 and until August 1873, the Commissioner of Public Works and the Public Works Department were responsible for the administration of cemeteries in Victoria, including the appointment of trustees and approval of regulations and fees. From 1873 until 1888 the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey and the Department of Crown Lands and Survey were responsible. The Maldon Cemetery was gazetted in 1878, as were many of Victoria's cemeteries during this period.

    An 1872 plan by W. H. Waller was of the area now known as the Pioneer section. This plan shows a large, slightly skewed, central oval which is linked to the main entrance and the rear gateway by a straight drive. The adjoining central division was drawn by James V. Walshe and is undated. It shows a wide drive which sweeps off the straight drive and curves around the north and back along the contour of the hillside. A series of straight crossing paths then intersect the curved main drive, and the existing northern entrance on Nuggetty Road is formed.

    The cemetery does not conform to the unusual layout divided into religious denominations. The old section has a mixture of memorials with an area of unconsecrated ground for the graves of stillbirths and suicides near to the rotunda. Of the original 1878 reserve approximately three to four hectares have been used for cemetery purposes, with the remaining area cleared and maintained by grazing livestock.

    A cemetery reserve extension comprising 17.8 hectares (44 acres) was gazetted on 12 March 1913. This land was vested in the cemetery trust by the Crown to preserve the thickly wooded granite hill and gully long regarded as a valuable landscape approach to the cemetery. The extension was revoked on 7 December 1983 and the land is now managed by the government rather than the cemetery trust.

    There have been over 8,000 burials in the cemetery including 121 Chinese but few Chinese memorials remain. Most Chinese had their remains returned to China for reburial. The solitary Chinese grave marker that remains at the cemetery is indistinguishable in style from the surrounding Anglican markers. According to the Tarrangower Times in 1858 there were 83 burials, 65 of which were children under the age of twelve years. In 1863, over nine weeks, 29 children under the age of twelve years died of diphtheria and typhoid. Some of the monuments were designed by the well-known architectural firm W. Beebe and Son of Bendigo. Another designer was J. Redfearn of Castlemaine:

    The Monterey pines along the fence were planted in 1919-1920, and it thought that the rotunda was built at the same time, as part of a scheme to provide employment to returned soldiers. The rotunda replaced an earlier shelter.

    The cemetery was damaged by a bushfire in 1969. Gas cylinders stored near the Lodge blew up, destroying the back wall of the lodge, part of the side wall and a window facing the graves, as well as the interior timber fittings and floors. It also destroyed many roses, lilacs and other shrubs and some tombstones collapsed.

    By 1978 the rotunda and lodge were in ruinous condition and were restored, and a new picket fence built along the front, under the supervision of heritage advisers Nigel Lewis and Trevor Westmore.

    The brick gutters in the new part of the cemetery (Section A) were added c 1990.

    The Maldon Cemetery remains open for burials but not in the pioneer section.

    Assessment Against Criteria

    MALDON CEMETERY - Assessment Against Criteria

    a. Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria's cultural history

    The Maldon Cemetery, established in 1861, is of historical significance as a substantially intact example of a mid-nineteenth century goldfields cemetery, which is still in use. The cemetery has strong associations with the early history of Maldon and with the Chinese who migrated there during the gold rush era. The Chinese funerary tower is a tangible reminder of the Chinese religious customs and building traditions practised in the colony, and is a fine example of a rare type. The cemetery is unusual for its lack of separate denominational compartments, the normal arrangement in nineteenth century cemeteries. The various features of the cemetery, the buildings, structures, graves and memorials, are important for the information they provide about burial customs and patterns of death in Victoria.

    b. Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria's cultural history.

    c. Potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria's cultural history.

    d. Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places or environments.

    Maldon Cemetery is architecturally significant for its sexton's cottage, an uncommon building type, and for the decorative rotunda.

    e. Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics.

    Maldon Cemetery has aesthetic significance for its unusual and intact layout, with an irregular arrangement of straight and curved paths, and for its spectacular setting. The cemetery memorials, tombstones and other funerary art are collectively important for their design characteristics and craftsmanship. The cemetery is significant for its impressive collection of bulbs and extensive ground covers, which form an outstanding display in the spring, and its shrubs and trees, notably the specimens of Italian Cypress. The vistas and views of these features both within the cemetery and against the granite and bush backdrop of Mt Nuggetty distinguish the spectacular setting of this precinct.

    f. Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

    g. Strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. This includes the significance of a place to Indigenous peoples as part of their continuing and developing cultural traditions.

    h. Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria's history.

    The Maldon cemetery has strong associations with the Chinese who migrated to the goldfields during the gold rush era.

    Plaque Citation

    MALDON CEMETERY - Plaque Citation

    This intact example of a goldfields cemetery was reserved in 1861 and is notable for its setting, its plant collection and its structures, including an unusual 1865 Chinese funerary tower and an 1866 sexton's lodge.

    Permit Exemptions

    MALDON CEMETERY - Permit Exemptions

    General Exemptions:

    General exemptions apply to all places and objects included in the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR). General exemptions have been designed to allow everyday activities, maintenance and changes to your property, which don’t harm its cultural heritage significance, to proceed without the need to obtain approvals under the Heritage Act 2017.

    Places of worship: In some circumstances, you can alter a place of worship to accommodate religious practices without a permit, but you must notify the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria before you start the works or activities at least 20 business days before the works or activities are to commence.

    Subdivision/consolidation: Permit exemptions exist for some subdivisions and consolidations. If the subdivision or consolidation is in accordance with a planning permit granted under Part 4 of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and the application for the planning permit was referred to the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria as a determining referral authority, a permit is not required.

    Specific exemptions may also apply to your registered place or object. If applicable, these are listed below. Specific exemptions are tailored to the conservation and management needs of an individual registered place or object and set out works and activities that are exempt from the requirements of a permit. Specific exemptions prevail if they conflict with general exemptions.

    Find out more about heritage permit exemptions here.

    Specific Exemptions:

    General Conditions: 1. All exempted alterations are to be planned and carried out in a manner which prevents damage to the fabric of the registered place or object. General Conditions: 2. Should it become apparent during further inspection or the carrying out of works that original or previously hidden or inaccessible details of the place or object are revealed which relate to the significance of the place or object, then the exemption covering such works shall cease and Heritage Victoria shall be notified as soon as possible. General Conditions: 3. If there is a conservation policy and plan endorsed by the Executive Director, all works shall be in accordance with it. Note: The existence of a Conservation Management Plan or a Heritage Action Plan endorsed by the Executive Director, Heritage Victoria provides guidance for the management of the heritage values associated with the site. It may not be necessary to obtain a heritage permit for certain works specified in the management plan. General Conditions: 4. Nothing in this determination prevents the Executive Director from amending or rescinding all or any of the permit exemptions. General Conditions: 5. Nothing in this determination exempts owners or their agents from the responsibility to seek relevant planning or building permits from the responsible authorities where applicable. Minor Works : Note: Any Minor Works that in the opinion of the Executive Director will not adversely affect the heritage significance of the place may be exempt from the permit requirements of the Heritage Act. A person proposing to undertake minor works may submit a proposal to the Executive Director. If the Executive Director is satisfied that the proposed works will not adversely affect the heritage values of the site, the applicant may be exempted from the requirement to obtain a heritage permit. If an applicant is uncertain whether a heritage permit is required, it is recommended that the permits co-ordinator be contacted.

    Landscape

    * Repairs, conservation, and maintenance to hard landscape elements, buildings and structures, fountains and monuments, steps, paths, paths and gutters, drainage and irrigation systems, edging, fences and gates.
    * The process of gardening; mowing, hedge clipping, bedding displays, removal of dead plants, disease and weed control, emergency and safety garden works.
    * New or replacement planting which conserves the historic landscape character including specimen trees, avenues, rows, shrubberies, beds, and lawns.
    * In the event of loss of any tree or palm specified in the Extent of Registration, replanting with the same species of tree as that removed.
    * Management of trees in accordance with Australian Standard; Pruning of Amenity Trees AS 4373.
    * Installation, removal or replacement of garden watering and drainage systems outside the canopy edge of significant trees.
    * Vegetation protection and management of the pests and diseases.
    * Removal of plants listed as noxious weeds in the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994.

    General

    * Interments, burials and erection of monuments, re-use of graves, burial of cremated remains, and exhumation of remains in accordance with the Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2003.
    * Stabilisation, restoration and repair of monuments.
    * Emergency and safety works to secure the site and prevent damage and injury to property and the public.
    * Monument works undertaken in accordance with Australian Standard AS4204 Headstones and Cemetery Monuments
    * Painting of previously painted structures provided that preparation or painting does not remove evidence of the original paint or other decorative scheme.

    Permit Exemption Policy

    MALDON CEMETERY - Permit Exemption Policy

    The purpose of the Permit Policy is to assist when considering or making decisions regarding works to the place. It is recommended that any proposed works be discussed with an officer of Heritage Victoria prior to making a permit application. Discussing any proposed works will assist in answering any questions the owner may have and aid any decisions regarding works to the place. It is recommended that a Conservation Management Plan is undertaken to assist with the future management of the cultural significance of the place.

    Maldon Cemetery is important for its nineteenth century layout and plantings, the entrance gates, sexton's lodge, rotunda, monuments, memorials and associated funerary artefacts. The Chinese funerary tower reflects an important aspect of Victoria's history.

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