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Westgarthtown Cemetery

Location Cnr Rosedale Drive & Gardenia Road,, LALOR VIC 3075 - Property No B6819 File Number B6819 Level State

[1/2] B6819 Westgarthtown Cemetery [2/2] B6819 Westgarthtown Cemetery

Statement of Significance

In 1850, four hectares (10 acres) of land were reserved by the German/Wendish pioneers for church, cemetery, school and shops. The church and the cemetery reserve is the only land that remains intact from the original settlement without subdivision. The Westgarthtown Cemetery has been in continual use since that time and is of at least 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 small, private settler's cemetery dating from mid last century.
*It exhibits unusual cultural features associated with the development of small, private settler's cemeteries which are an extermely rare typology in Victoria.
-its possession of uncommon aspects of Australia's cultural history as a small, private settler's cemetery dating from mid last century.
*Its importance in 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 is no directly comparable examples in Victoria. *For its collection of trees and plants, including remnant indigenous vegetation of drooping She-oak (Allocasuarina verticillata), Lightwood ( Acacia implexa) and Black-anther Flax-lily (Dianella revoluta) and plantings, such as Monterery Pine trees (Pinus Radiata), Italian cypress (Cupressus cempervirens) and ornamental plants, including Pelargonium, Rosa, Narcissus cultivars and Dianthus species.
-its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Australia's cultural history.
*Its importance for information contributing to a wider understanding of Austrlaian history, by virtue of its use as a research and reference site.
*Its importance for information contributing to a wider understanding of the history of human occupation of Australia. For example by providing information about the patterns of deaths in the pioneering settlement by age, religion and family; and sometimes giving causes, occupations and other information. By illustrating the importance of homelands in epitaphs and also by demonstrating the range of technical and craft skills and materials available.
*For its collection of extant locally indigenous plants of great botanical interest as being amongst the few surviving specimens in the metropolis.
*For its value as a historical record, a collection of individual memorials, its continuity and security, for the manner in which it inspires a respect for the dead, as a social document, and for its role in education and recreation.
-its importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of : (1) A class of Australia's cultural places, being small, private settler's cemeteries dating from mid last century.
*Its importance in demonstrating the principal attributes which are characteristic of the class. These are: a rectangular set out with stone walls and trees defining boundaries, a regular arrangements of family plots with headstones facing east, and a central straight path which was probably an avenue.
*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). It demonstrates the life for the pioneering families as a record of their deaths and the manner in which they recorded them as well as in the relationship with pioneering community buildings,like the Church and farmhouses at Westgarthtown.
-its importance in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the pioneering community.
*Its importance to the community for aesthetic characteristics held in high esteem is demonsrated in the value of the cemetery as a sacred place adjacent to the church and farmhouses, and also in that twentieth century development respected the earlier design.
-its importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement of the mid nineteenth century period and onwards.
*importance for technical, creative, design or 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 reasons.
*Its importance as a place highly valued by a community for reasons of religious, spiritual, symbolic, cultural, educational and social associations. Westgarthtown Cemetery has special associations for the Lutheran community because of its continual relationship with the pioneering families and their descendents since 1850.
-its special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Australia's natural or cultural history.
*Its importance for close associations with a group of German/Wendish Lutheran pioneers whose activities have been significant within the history of the State or region and are illustrated in the monuments and epitaphs to them, including the families of Graff, Nebel, Grutzner, Ziebell, Fiedler, Rosel, Seeber, Karsten, Peers, Maltzahn, Winter, Zimmer, Ewart, Siebel, Schultz and Wuchatsch which all have family plots.
Classified: 04/08/1997