'Cross of crosses' for Anzac Day in Waihi

Krishna Buckman and Pete Beveridge on the hill where the ''cross of crosses'' will be placed. Photo / Rebecca Mauger

An impressive "cross of crosses" will be erected at Martha Hill in the lead up to Anzac Day.

Waihi Heritage Vision has been gifted 2000 named crosses from the Fields of Remembrance display of 18,000 that were laid out in the Auckland Domain grounds last year.

The crosses have been dispersed to RSAs and groups throughout the country.

The plan is to display the 2000 crosses on the grassy slope below the Rangatira statue by the pumphouse in the shape of a cross.

It will be called a "cross of crosses".

Waihi Heritage Vision member Krishna Buckman says the cross of crosses continues from Waihi's Armistice Exhibition last year. The exhibition featured stories of soldiers, nurses and their families during World War I.

It also had a touching display of more than 2000 poppies made by local crocheters and knitters.

"From that exhibition we had so many people connecting again with their families," Krishna says. "It was quite an emotional exhibition."

Waihi locals would have liked the exhibition to have been longer, she says.

"This is another way of connecting our town."

Pete Beveridge, a descendant of a New Zealand Tunnelling Company member, says the cross of crosses will provide a chance for locals to remember the fallen soldiers, in past and recent times including the tunnellers sent overseas.

Pete's grandfather Joe Beveridge was sent to war twice — the Boer War in 1900 and as a tunneller in France during World War I.

There are 100 crosses dedicated to the tunnellers. There will be a community Anzac Day at Tunnellers Memorial, Gilmour Park, where the 100 tunnellers' crosses will be placed.

This is another Waihi Heritage Vision and Tunnellers Company Descendants project.

Groups, organisations and individuals are invited to be part of the "community army" to help put the crosses in place in the lead up to Anzac Day (from 10am-12pm each day from March 28).

The full effect of the crosses is expected to be seen from Haszard St.