Homebush to Auburn - December 2017
Met: Whole group met at Homebush Station at 9.15.
Participants - Ron, Chris, Peter, Yvonne, Helen, Richard, Colin and Natalie
Along the Way:
Time Taken: 9.30-2.30 including morning tea and lunch stops.
Distance: About 9 km. Quote of the Day from Peter. “This will be on my bucket list!”
Facts about Rookwood
Met: Whole group met at Homebush Station at 9.15.
Participants - Ron, Chris, Peter, Yvonne, Helen, Richard, Colin and Natalie
Along the Way:
- Café 41 at Homebush for a tea/coffee break.
- Walked along streets past some large, old beautiful houses.
- Walked along a series of small parks, following the course of a small creek.
- Rookwood Cemetery-gates have been recently restored. A grand entrance.
- War Cemetery graves and memorial area where Helen found her Dad’s plaque.
- Walked in a zig zag fashion towards the middle and top of the cemetery.
- We noted the cultural differences in size and type of grave sites between the Chinese (large red granite), Maori (personal and individual in style), Serbian (ornate with funereal symbols on top), Jewish (large plots mostly grey or black granite, small white stones placed around the edge by family, the older graves used sandstone rather than granite) and Presbyterian (in the older more overgrown section with old sandstone headstones)
- Had a great talk to the gentlemen working in the Chinese section. They said a single plot was $30,000 to buy and about $20,000 for the granite work on top. A Chinese gentleman had recently purchased 9 plots!
- Saw the Jewish Holocaust Memorial and the remains of the Mortuary Receiving Station No. 1.
- Exited the cemetery passing by the oldest area. The last grave we saw had a memorial stone indicating it was one that had been moved from the cemetery at Central. (This cemetery at Central was also known as Devonshire Street Cemetery or Brickfields or Sandhills Cemetery.)
- Due to the heat, we decided to alter plans a little and have lunch at Dooley’s Club. What a good idea! Cool inside and we were ready for drinks and food.
- After lunch, we completed the walk following the railway line to the Gallipoli Mosque. Very friendly locals outside and the inside of the mosque was beautiful, peaceful and like all churches- a place of quiet reflection.
- Final stretch up to Auburn station.
Time Taken: 9.30-2.30 including morning tea and lunch stops.
Distance: About 9 km. Quote of the Day from Peter. “This will be on my bucket list!”
Facts about Rookwood
- Necropolis means city of the dead.
- Rookwood is the largest necropolis in the southern hemisphere- 290 ha. Ashbury is 98 ha!
- There are over 1 million burials at Rookwood. Ashbury has 3,367 residents.
- Train service from Mortuary Station Central to Rookwood began in 1867, twice daily collecting corpses and mourners along the way. Return fare was 1/-. The corpses travelled for free! The last train service is recorded in 1947.
- Eventually there were 3 Receiving Stations in the cemetery.
- In 1901 relatives were given 2 months to arrange the exhumation of family members buried at the cemetery at Central. 8,500 claims were made. Some 30,000 remained unclaimed.
- Originally the cemetery was known as The Necropolis, Then Haslems Creek. Local residents did not like their suburb having the same name as the necropolis so the suburb was changed to Rookwood in 1876. Then the cemetery became known as Rookwood. Locals once again complained that their suburb had the same name as the cemetery so in 1913 the suburb’s name changed to Lidcome. Lidcome is a combination name of 2 former mayors, Lidbury and Larcombe.
- Rookwood’s Mortuary Station No.1 fell into disrepair and was sold for £100 to Reverend Buckle and it was dismantled and transported to Canberra where it was converted into All Saints Church of England in Ainslie.