Goldfields Cemeteries

Fascinating places, especially for a relatively 'new' place like Australia (for European settlers anyway). These cemeteries where abandoned as soon as the gold ran out, and the prospectors moved on.

Sandy Creek Cemetery - some pointers to the origins of the miners there -[IMG]http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy9/i_berg/Goldfields%20Cemeteries%20Victoria/_IGP6329R.jpg[/IMG]

Sandy Creek also - note the spread of dates...
[IMG]http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy9/i_berg/Goldfields%20Cemeteries%20Victoria/_IGP1123R.jpg[/IMG]

Pennyworth Children's Cemetery (mid 1800s), near Castlemaine - this was sobering. Most of the graves are nothing but bits of local rock arranged in a small oval (and believe me, they are small). Very few had headstones like these -
[IMG]http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy9/i_berg/Goldfields%20Cemeteries%20Victoria/_IGP1132R.jpg[/IMG]

Pennyworth again - worth noting the ages of the bairns
[IMG]http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy9/i_berg/Goldfields%20Cemeteries%20Victoria/_IGP1135R.jpg[/IMG]

Some of the few that did have headstones, were nonetheless makeshift arrangements like this - (and the stone was so soft the inscriptions were weathered off). This is an example of the small rocks that marked the outline of many of the graves. For most, that is all they had.
[IMG]http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy9/i_berg/Goldfields%20Cemeteries%20Victoria/_IGP1136-2R.jpg[/IMG]

Some 200 children are buried there, by the miners and prospectors who were too poor to do anything else for them. Bless 'em.

Fascinating and poignant set of images. I, too, am attracted to visiting and photographing graveyards.

K.

Terrific shots, I-Berg! I love the PP work you've used to unify the set.

Cemeteries, particularly Victorian ones, are full of potential and always interesting. I photographed one in Wales last week where the hard slate headstones had hardly weathered. As Kris says, very poignant.

I agree with the comments from Kris and Andrew, there is something both moving and fascinating when you read inscriptions from old headstones.

Regards

The second works best for me because of the context. The Blue Gums and scrub are very suggestive of Australia.

G

Thanks all

- Andrew, Wales is on the itinerary, in due course...

- George, The surrounding bush is probably the most significant feature of these old places, because the bush is reclaiming them at a fair clip. Give them another century, and they will have disappeared. That feeling of isolation and solitude at bush graves is something I've never found in military or civilian graveyards that are still graveyards per se. Part of the 'Great Outdoors' here, probably.