More Than Just a Space To Bury the Dead: Our City’s Cemeteries Were Designed for the Living Too

We don’t like to be reminded of death, but there was a time in America when people organised picnics in cemeteries. In France, curious travellers still flock to the Catacombs of Paris to learn about its history. Closer to home, Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton has rotundas to encourage people to have picnics there, and Springvale Botanical Cemetery has a cafe and playground. Yet we still don’t think of cemeteries as public space.

Helen Tuton, a horticultural asset manager for Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (SMCT) – which manages Melbourne General Cemetery, Springvale Botanical Cemetery and Brighton General Cemetery – confirms the burial sites were originally designed to be public spaces and a lot has been done to encourage people to spend time in them.

“Melbourne General Cemetery was designed in 1852 and, at that time, cemeteries were designed to be gardens with open spaces to encourage passive recreation. It has rose gardens, wide, winding paths and European designs and plantings, similar to Fitzroy Gardens,” she tells Broadsheet. “Similarly, Springvale is a modern cemetery with a cafe and a centre for care and wellbeing. We want people to think of it as more than just a space to bury the dead.”

During Covid lockdowns, people spent more time in their neighbourhood cemeteries, she says. “They realised the cemeteries were their local open space. The St Kilda Cemetery is a good example of having a public space within pockets of urban space. I met a woman who told me she learnt to rollerblade there.”

Lauren McDonald, a Melbourne local, often visits cemeteries in old towns with her family. She enjoys reading details on tombstones; her version of time travel. “You can piece the details together and make up some stories about [the people buried there] or learn about things like life expectancy. Heaps of people died in what we would now consider young age,” she says.

Similarly, when Deborah Ong used to study at Melbourne University in Carlton, she would walk in Melbourne General Cemetery to clear her head. She grew up in Singapore and her Singaporean and Malaysian friends consider it taboo to hang around the space. “It’s pantang, as the older generation would say. Almost like inviting death,” she says.

But this does not faze Ong. She enjoys the quiet space and alone time.

Today, Ong lives near the Footscray General Cemetery and she recalls spending time there during the lockdown years. “It was less crowded than parks. I would run in the park and then cool down in the cemetery.”

While it’s encouraging to see people interact with cemeteries to socialise or for fitness, there is a pricklier question of whether everyone will treat the space with reverence. And do families of the deceased feel comfortable seeing people enjoy the space?

“We find that people are more respectful in cemeteries, it is different to how they treat parks,” says Tuton. “Usually they are just moving through or walking their dog. They do not interfere with people mourning.”

Ong agrees. “There is something sacred about life and death. Whether people believe in ghosts or not, they don’t want to put it to the test. They just tone down their behaviour in this space.”