Strathbogie Tableland

The cemetery

The Cemetery occupies 5 acres of ground on the Mt Wombat/Strathbogie road, west of the township.  It is in a bushland setting with farmland around it and is a tranquil last resting place.  The site was one of several possibilities considered and for a while it was considered to be too far out of town.  However, for various reasons, none of the other options was taken up and so the present cemetery became the official one, and a Government land grant was made in 1898.

The past

The Strathbogie Cemetery served members of the Strathbogie community  until Joseph Hayes’ burial in 1946, after which it became disused. After that, as it was generally believed that the cemetery was closed, burials were transferred to the Euroa cemetery or elsewhere.

However, in 1998 the Strathbogie Cemetery was listed again in the Government Gazette, with its plot fee given at the 1946 price of $10. (This has since been amended to a more reasonable price for today). There have been a number of burials since then.

As soon as it was discovered that the site was operational once again, the Strathbogie Cemetery Trust was reinstated and restoration work began. Funds were sought from the various tiers of government, the site was fenced and cleared of decades of unrestricted weed growth (thanks to money left for maintenance by the late Mr. Rathman), site identification signage was prepared, a notice-board and memorial stone (for plaques commemorating ‘lost’ relatives) were erected at the front gate and work began on identifying the graves.

Originally the cemetery had contained five sections for:

• Catholics
• Anglicans (then Church of England)
• Methodists
• Presbyterians
• “Strangers”

Burials were given sequential numbers in the cemetery records, but the graves could be anywhere on the ground itself, depending on their occupant’s denomination. The Trust decided to number the sites instead, for greater ease of location.

The present

Unfortunately some of the earlier records have been lost. A list is available of the names of people buried at Strathbogie, but many of the graves are unmarked. Trust members have given each site a number and provided concrete markers with aluminium name tags for all those they have been able to identify. However, they feared the danger of re-allocating an already-occupied grave unless all those named on the their list could be accounted for.

Enter “geophys” – the science of using ground-penetrating radar to pick up grave profiles (disturbed sub-surface earth reflecting back signals different to naturally compacted soil.) In April 2008 a member of a geophysical unit from Sydney did some initial work at the cemetery with a radar machine which reveals any anomaly on the screen radar echo pattern, indicating the presence of an unknown person's grave. It is planned to survey the entire cemetery over time.                                           

                                                               

                 Attention is focused on the spot where a large anomaly indicates the presence of an unknown person's grave.

Photograph courtesy Euroa Gazette

 The GBG ground-penetrating radar machine in action.

 Photograph courtesy Euroa Gazette

Burials today

The Cemetery is available to anyone wishing to buried there.  A limited number of pre-paid plots (single or double) are currently available to be booked.  When the geophysical survey is complete, then it will be known how much ground remains unused and the number of plots will increase. The current cost (September 2009) of reserving a plot is $508 (single plot). For all burial enquiries, contact the Secretary below.

The Cemetery Trust

The cemetery is administered by a small group of residents who serve in a voluntary capacity.  They look after the administration of the cemetery and its physical maintenance.  Help is always welcome.  For general enquiries about the Strathbogie Cemetery Trust call:

President:    Graeme Dash   03 5790 5341

Secretary:    Anne Simpson  03 5790 8509 

This is a photo of a recent working bee followed by a bbq lunch for the twenty or so workers that turned up. Brendon Gibson, grandson of Harry Broughton, hand mowed the whole front section while Gordon Broughton and Graeme Dash did inside the fence with the ride on mower. Alan Simpson whipper snipped both inside and outside, and others tidied up outside the fence.