Waverley Cemetery Audio Guide

Waverley Cemetery: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Waverley Cemetery

   Welcome to Waverley Cemetery, perched on the clifftops at Bronte in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Take a moment to picture the setting. The cemetery sits between two ridges, and its white marble monuments stand out sharply against the blue of the sea and sky. It is one of the most striking burial grounds in the country, and one of the most loved by the local community. Waverley Cemetery was established in 1877 and overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It is still a working cemetery, not a museum piece. Families still come here to remember, and the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk brings walkers right past its edge. Over the next few minutes we will look at how the cemetery began, why its marble looks the way it does, and one remarkable story of a man who was buried twice.

2. 02

   How a Council Built a Cemetery

   The story starts with a growing community. Waverley Municipal Council was proclaimed in 1859, and it soon saw that the fast-growing eastern suburbs needed a general cemetery of their own. By 1868 the council had identified a site for it. The wider area had been part of Sydney's story since the early nineteenth century, when the first road out to the military outpost at South Head was completed in 1811. The cemetery officially opened on the first of August, 1877. The first burial followed just a few days later, on the fourth of August. Over the years it expanded, taking in additional land and adding features such as the Caretaker's House and the Cemetery Lodge. In 1890 the steam tramway arrived and made the cemetery far easier for the public to reach. By then it was more than a place for burials. It had become a symbol of the community's values and prosperity, and a treasured part of Sydney's cultural landscape.

3. 03

   A Landscape in White Marble

   Look at the monuments and you will see why this cemetery photographs so well. The layout keeps much of its Victorian character, and many of the headstones and monuments are white Carrara marble, the Italian stone long prized for sculpture. Against the green of the grass and the blue of the Pacific, the effect is almost luminous. The variety is just as notable. Alongside the marble headstones you will find a diverse array of funerary furniture, which is the term for the monuments, memorials and fittings that mark a grave. Because the cemetery has been in continuous use, new funerary styles and fashions have arrived over time. Together they reflect how the cultural and religious makeup of Sydney has changed. Few places let you read the city's social history so plainly in stone.

4. 04

   The Man Who Was Buried Twice

   Among the many people laid to rest here is Sir James Martin, and his story has a twist. He had an illustrious career as a lawyer, journalist, statesman, judge and politician. If you have ever walked through Martin Place in the heart of Sydney, you have walked on a street named in his honour. His wife is remembered too, in the name of Lady Martin's Beach. When he died in 1886, he was buried at Saint Jude's in Randwick. His wife and he were estranged. After her death in 1909, he was reinterred at Waverley Cemetery. It is a small human detail inside a grand public reputation, and a reminder that every name on a Sydney street map once belonged to a person with a private life. The cemetery holds stories like his from across politics, the arts and ordinary family life.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Waverley Cemetery has been recognized as a place of state heritage significance. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on the twenty-eighth of October, 2016. Its wealth of genealogical, historical, architectural and artistic information makes it a valuable educational resource, and it remains readily accessible to people across the city. It has also had a life on screen, appearing in films including Tim, from 1979, and Long Story Short, from 2021. As you leave, look again at the names on the stones and the shapes of the monuments, and let the sea breeze do its work. Each one hints at a life that was part of Sydney's story. Which of those stories will you follow next?