Bolton Street Cemetery

On a recent trip to Wellington I found myself at a meeting in a hotel conference room. Hardly surprising… that’s pretty much what I do on work trips. One of the guest speakers gestured out the window behind him and said that his first NZ forebear is buried in the cemetery there. I’m always up for a good graveyard, so the next morning on my constitutional walk I visited the site.

It’s a beautiful spot, just a couple of blocks from Parliament, with a nice brochure from which you can learn about various historical figures. Several of the important colonial figures are buried there, names that are familiar to me because most NZ towns have a street or park or both named after these men.

The story of how the site was cut in half in the 1960s to put in the motorway was interesting, and the commitment of the Wellingtonians to preserve the history of the place was impressive.

It’s probably not on many of the Wellington must-see lists, but the beauty and the (very accessible) history lesson make Bolton Street Cemetery well worth a visit.