Palmerston North writer Sonya Holm developing guidebook on New Zealand cemeteries

Wildflowers making the graves their home in Karori Cemetery, Wellington. Photo / Sonya Holm

Walking among the dead might not be a common source of inspiration, but for some, it’s a favourite pastime.

I too have started seeking out cemeteries, sitting with people I never knew.

I take my camera and enjoy the peacefulness of these largely forgotten places, once on the edge of towns, now often in the middle of busy cities.

Strolling around, I enjoy what Peter Ross describes in his book A Tomb With a View on the glories of graveyards as “the serenity of eternity”.

I find these “parks for introverts” – an apt description from Jim Tipton, the founder of the website Find a Grave – so intriguing that I’ve started a project to document the 50 most fascinating cemeteries in New Zealand.

I’m researching and photographing old cemeteries managed by councils to develop a guidebook. (I am not covering burial grounds connected to churches or private urupā.)

Tombstone tourism is more common overseas, with thousands of taphophiles, people who love cemeteries, visiting the resting place of the famous and infamous.

Highgate Cemetery in London, described by its managing trust as the finest Victorian cemetery in England, home to George Michael and Karl Marx, regularly has more than 80,000 visitors a year.

Glasnevin, Ireland’s national cemetery in Dublin, has about 200,000 visitors each year.

In New Zealand, we don’t tend to hero-worship the dead in the same way, and visitors to our historic burial grounds are mostly genealogists, photographers, dog walkers, geocache hunters or even those learning how to drive.

Yet the intersection of art, history and human interest remains alive and well in our old cemeteries, even when overgrown, covered in moss and hidden from view.

Enjoying the history and atmosphere, Sonya Holm stands on the steps at Terrace End Cemetery in Palmerston North. Photo / Arlo Macmillan

I’m learning that despite essentially being a euphemism for “where people sleep”, cemeteries are alive with the stories of the past.

They contain bespoke pieces of architecture draped in intricate imagery offering additional details about loved ones’ lives.

Every pointing hand, angel, urn or broken pillar carries an individual meaning.

Collectively they tell us about the politics of local communities: historic monuments and mausoleums are often both an act of love and a bid for social status.

Take another step back, and cemeteries are steeped in the heroics, injustices and uncomfortable truths of European settlement in Aotearoa New Zealand, a time when lives were being enhanced and destroyed in equal measure.

I have started travelling the country, finding those gates in hedges leading to our most peaceful of parks.

I delight in the contrast of bright flowers and vases against gray, and the beautiful wildness of nature claiming graves for its own.

I wander through the rows of sculptures, enjoying what John O’Hare from Heritage New Zealand describes as headstones “vying with each other for your attention”.

I’ve also been enjoying the unexpected.

There are unwanted finds, such as old beer cans, leftover fireworks, stinging nettles, dog poo and destruction from rabbits.

Then there’s just the curiously quirky. Lost children’s shoes. Toy cars and tiny trolls. Baby hats hanging off wrought iron fences. Lost trikes.

Sometimes safety signs, alerting visitors to potential dangers including crumbling stone, are inadvertently funny such as digging signs placed on graves and no entry warnings.

I’ve seen vegetables and fruit trees growing from graves. But my favourite so far is a white gumboot placed on a tombstone.

There’s a lot to be found in the often overgrown grounds of our sleeping ancestors, places that present both an escape from the busyness of life and a reminder of what’s important.

Far from being dead and buried, I can confirm old cemeteries are alive and well.

Garden gate leading to Mangaweka Cemetery. Photo / Sonya Holm

With my project, I hope to build on the dedicated work of volunteers, Friends of Cemetery groups, and the NZ Society of Genealogists, who have spent years documenting the details of graves, cleaning headstones, keeping historic cemeteries tidy, researching individual lives and running tours.

Sonya Holm is a freelance writer and photographer based in Palmerston North.