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Linwood Cemetery
- Brief History
- Linwood Cemetery Tour Guide (pdf)
Guide based on cemetery tours that take place as part of annual Heritage Week events. The guides are from the research and notes of Richard L N Greenaway. - Linwood Cemetery Map
- Early Linwood Cemetery Map
- Location: Entrance off Butterfield Avenue (next door to Bromley Park on Buckleys Road)
- Draft Linwood Cemetery Conservation Plan
A conservation plan for Linwood Cemetery has been prepared by Opus international consultants to provide Christchurch City Council with tools to restore and maintain one of the city’s oldest cemeteries for future generations. - Interments are listed in the Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database.
Brief History
Linwood Cemetery, which opened in 1883, was the first municipal cemetery of the Christchurch City Council, which at that time had its town belt bounded by the four avenues. In keeping with international trends of the time, the Cemetery was located on the outskirts of the city, bounded by Butterfield Ave, Hay St, Buckley Rd and McGregors Rd.
The cemetery is the fifth oldest surviving cemetery to be established in Christchurch and is an historical record of many early Christchurch residents. The nature of the cemetery means that it is thought that there is a wider cross-section of society buried there than at other Christchurch cemeteries and church graveyards of the nineteenth cemetery.
Linwood Cemetery is the resting place of many ordinary citizens of Christchurch and several notable New Zealanders including Bishop Churchill Julius, the second Anglican Bishop of Christchurch; Thomas John Edmonds and his wife Jane Elizabeth Edmonds of Edmonds Factory fame; and explorer Arthur Dudley Dobson. It has a Jewish section, including graves resited from the 19th century Jewish cemetery in Hereford Street.
This cemetery, which has some exquisite examples of early monumental masonry, has fallen into disrepair as a result of vandalism and neglect. The sandy soils on this site do not provide a sound foundation for headstones and surrounds. An extensive restoration programme is currently in progress at Linwood Cemetery. This includes repairs to monumental masonry, path reconstruction, landscape enhancement and entrance redevelopment.
