Alexis Brook

Due to popular demand a new columbarium will be open in the new year at Purewa.

Due to popular demand a new columbarium will be open in the new year at Purewa.

One man has been quietly cleaning and restoring old headstones at Purewa Cemetery for the past year.

Have you ever wondered how finger printing to convict criminals and the armed offenders squad became established in New Zealand?

Birdsong is returning to Purewa Cemetery thanks to a joint initiative with the Eastern Bays Birdsong Project.

With the recent completion of four new kidney-shaped gardens and one central round garden, Purewa Cemetery and Crematorium, has added to the existing 16 kidney gardens which are now fully subscribed.

Purewa is getting a floral makeover in the oldest parts of the 131-year-old cemetery thanks to Meadowbank resident Miriama Toms.

Miriama’s 16-year-old son Felix died last year of sudden unexpected death due to epilepsy, and is buried in E block, one of the older parts of the cemetery where many graves sites and headstones have fallen into disrepair because there are no family members to look after them.

The second stage of Purewa’s popular Walk of Memories for ash interments has been completed.

The 250-metre-long extension provides 670 new plots for families to purchase in a tranquil garden-lined setting.

More than 75 people attended Purewa Cemetery’s first Auckland Heritage Festival tours last month.

The tours were part of the festival which is organised by the Auckland Council annually across the city celebrating various aspects of heritage. The theme for this year’s event was Journeys – the stories of how our people travelled to Tamaki Makaurau by sea, air or land, to create a shared future together.

Two of Auckland’s early leading citizens were recognised at a ceremony at Purewa last month.

Judge Francis Dart Fenton and Sir Edwin Mitchelson were both buried at Purewa but without headstones or plaques to acknowledge their significant contributions to the development of the city. The Purewa Cemetery Trust Board decided to prepare appropriate plaques, which were dedicated at the ceremony on September 21.

Purewa Cemetery is taking part in the Auckland Council’s Auckland Heritage Festival next month.

Purewa will host four separate guided tours led by historians, mostly focusing on some of the early citizens of Auckland from many different walks of life, who helped found and shape this city.

Purewa Cemetery and Crematorium’s newest building, an almost double in size administration centre, was officially opened recently by the Bishop of Auckland, the Right Reverend Ross Bay.