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Pennyweight Flat Cemetery

Location 1 Colles Road,, MOONLIGHT FLAT VIC 3451 - Property No B1973 File Number B1973 Level State

[1/2] B1973 Pennyweight Flat [2/2] B1973 Pennyweight Flat

Statement of Significance

A cemetery which functioned between 1852 and 1857 in the earliest days of the Forest Creek gold diggings and which reflects to an exceptional degree the conditions of mining life at that time. Burials at the cemetery seem to have been effectively initiated by an epidemic of influenza in November 1852 in which many children died. Children formed the majority of about 200 internments. Many of the graves are built up with stone sides because of the difficulty of excavating the rocky ground. Although the cemetery is in a decrepit state some headstones survive and the ground is romantically situated on a rise overlooking Forest Creek amongst a stand of established eucalypts rather than amongst the European plantings more common to such sites.
Classified: 03/09/1987

See also file L10283