THE Harrietville Cemetery has a new site for cremated remains thanks to the work of the Harrietville Cemetery Trust and a State government grant. The cemetery’s previously unused western corner now features three concrete strips near the Gallipoli Pine, where cremated remains can be buried on each side of the strips, and small granite memorials will be installed on the concrete. Due to its proximity to the pine, it will be renamed the ‘Pine Lawn Section’. According to the cemetery trust, the site replaces 24 full gravesites for 60 smaller plots, and as each can host the remains of two people the site can potentially hold 120 internments. Harrietville Cemetery Trust chair Doug Humphries said this is a more effective use of cemetery land as cremated remains previously required a full gravesite. “It was a case of trying to, as best we could, future-proof the cemetery, making sure that we still had sufficient land available,” he said. According to the trust, demand for the internment of cremated remains has increased over recent years, necessitating a dedicated site for them. In mid-2022, the trustees established a working party to investigate alternatives for the interment of cremated remains, which decided on the current concept and rejected the installation of a columbarium wall, considering them inappropriate for the cemetery’s mix of historic and contemporary graves. “They look like a post box in a paddock,” Mr Humphries said. Instead, the less intrusive granite memorials were selected. “This concept has been used successfully, not to this scale, but for full-size graves at Beechworth in their lawn cemetery, and it looks really nice,” he said. "We're very pleased with the way it's come up as a concept." The works follows the awarding of just over $5000 in state government funds from the Cemetery Grants Program in February this year. Mr Humphries said trustees also contributed with in-kind work, including free labour and machinery use. He thanked the state government for the funding, the trustees for their help, and local concreter Adrian Felton. It is expected the trust will begin issuing graves at the site in late spring or early summer once the ground has settled and the section has been seeded with lawn.
