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St Andrews Historic Graveyard

Other Name

St Andrews Brighton Cemetery

Location

N.E. Cnr New & Church Streets,, BRIGHTON VIC 3186 - Property No B6817

File Number

B6817

Level

State

Statement of Significance

With more than 300 burials, most of them before 1860, St Andrew's Cemetery is a rare Victorian example of a traditional English parish church with its private graveyard.
It is of state significance for the following reasons:
-- Its importance in the course of Australia's cultural history as a sophisticated and substantially intact example of a suburban churchyard burial ground, exhibiting unusual cultural features associated with the development of suburban churchyard burial grounds.
-- As a rare example of a suburban churchyard burial ground demonstrating a distinctive way of life, custom and design no longer practised and in danger of being lost. It is of exceptional interest as there are very few examples of this typology in Victoria.
-- its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Australia's cultural history by its use as a research and reference site contributing to wider understanding of the history of human occupation of Australia e.g. the patterns of deaths in the Brighton area by age, religion, family; occupations, cause of death, importance of homelands in epitaphs and also the range of technical and craft skills and materials available.
-- its value as a historical record of a collection of individual memorials which inspires a respect for the dead and a sense of continuity
-- its role in education and recreation
-- its importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of suburban churchyard burial grounds as a class of Australia's cultural places - small defined cemetery area, a formal layout and close proximity to a church.
-- Its importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the range of human activities in the Australian environment (including way of life, custom, process, land use, function, design or technique).
-- Its tree from the original planting scheme, a specimen of Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens).
-- Its importance in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the pioneering community demonstrated in the value of the cemetery as a small, defined burial ground in close proximity to the church; its setting within the church grounds and also in that the twentieth century development respected the earlier design (although with encroaching development this is now threatened)
-- its importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement of the Victorian period in design, artistic excellence, innovation or achievement, including the cemetery's collection of memorials, tombstones and other funerary art.
-- its strong or special associations with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual for reasons of religious, spiritual, symbolic, cultural, educational and social association.
St Andrew's Cemetery has special associations for the Brighton community because of its early establishment date; its importance for close associations with individuals whose activities have been significant within the history of the State or region and are illustrated in the monuments and epitaphs to them, including notable families of the Weres, Foots and Higinbothams.
Classified: 04/08/1997

Group

Cemeteries and Burial Sites