By XAVIER SMERDON
WERRIBEE Cemetery could potentially become an archaeological site with the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust using ground penetrating radar technology to see what lies under the soil.
The GMCT has joined forces with GBG Australia who carried out the radar investigations on various sections of the 150-year-old cemetery last Thursday.
Werribee is one of 18 cemeteries under the care of GMCT and dates back to the mid-19th century, with its earliest known graves dating back to 1850.
In the 1950’s a fire destroyed valuable historic volumes which held the details of burials and plot locations between the cemetery’s official establishment on 10 October 1864 and 1909.
The GMCT’s Client Services Manager – West, Tanya Tabone, said the research is part of the Trust’s conservation strategy to make sure Werribee Cemetery is properly recorded, grave sites are recognised and that local history is protected.
“We know that burials took place in the cemetery between 1864 and 1909. These are our lost years,” Ms Tabone said.
“Surviving records also suggest that the site had been used for a number of burials prior to being gazetted as a cemetery.
“Recent exploratory digs have revealed previously unmapped burial sites we suspect date back to the early settlement of Werribee.”
Ms Tabone said a mobile radar unit was used to probe below the surface, down a depth of around two metres.
The equipment worked across sections of the cemetery, painstakingly compiling metre-wide bands of data.
“It is the GMCT’s hope that the use of radar technology will assist us in creating a more complete ‘map’ of the cemetery and unearth the lost chapter in the history of the Werribee community,” she said.
The GMCT is in the process of establishing a Werribee Cemetery Friends Group and will collaborate with Wyndham City Council and the local community on the progress of the research.
