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M.S.C Cemetery - St. Mary's Towers
1907 to Present
In
the MSC cemetery behind the Retreat Centre, members of the Society of
the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Australian Province and others are
buried. This cemetery is the last resting place for most of the members
of the province, just over two hundred, but those buried elsewhere are
also remembered here. Many members come to pay their last respects, and
visitors remember old friendships as they wander among the graves.
Scattered among the MSC are a few Lay members of the Chevalier Family, as well as one or two other non-MSC who laboured along side MSC priests and brothers.
While the cemetery was in use from an early time during the MSC ownership of the property, it was only consecrated on the 29th March 1944, by Most Reverend Francis Xavier Gsell msc the first bishop of the Diocese of Palmerston (now Darwin, covering the whole Northern Territory). The consecration stone marks the edge of the pathway into the cemetery.
The
cemetery is composed of three sections; The older section,
slightly raised beds with sandstone borders and white marble lead-embeded
headstones, crowned with a cross of marble. The newer section
is a lawn cemetery also of three double-sided rows, begun in the year
2002, it has metal plaques on low concrete supports. The third
section is a memorial house built in the style of a Tongan Fale
(meeting house) with a large pink granite memorial stone naming those
buried in cemeteries elsewhere than Douglas Park. A waterfall adorns the
Fale. A rose garden punctuates the second and third sections.
The consecration stone, statues and crosses, as well as the field-stone fences (probably the labour of the apostolic school boys) were all set in place during the time of the first section. The cemetery fence encompasses a large area - future predictions perhaps that many MSC would finish their days here.
Of
special significance in the older section is the grave of Rev.
Father Marie Pierre Treand msc, founder of the MSC Australian
Province, and a contemporary of the founder of the Missionaries of the
Sacred Heart, Fr. Jules Chevalier. Originally from France, Father Treand
had been in England to establish an Apostolic School at Glastonbury, Somerset,
when called by Father Chevalier to come to Sydney, to help with the new
foundations in Australia.
Another interesting memorial stone at the base of the central white cross is to three MSC who were killed during the hostilities of the Second World War. The orginal memorial stone marked the entrance to the older section, but had deteriorated and needed replacing. The present basalt memorial was made when the 2002 rennovations took place.
old public cemetery
Good Shepherd Hill, St. Mary's Towers
There
is an old public cemetery on the hilltop behind the buildings
(now called Good Shepherd Hill due to the statue mounted there)
where the grove of gum trees now stands.
It was established in the time of Major Mitchell and Dr. Jenkins, but the headstones are gone from there.
Research is currently being done on this cemetery, and a restored memorial is planned for the site.
An
Old Colonial Gothic style church, St Bede’s is notable for its intactness
and the fact that it still retains much of its original character. The
church was designed by Father John Joseph Therry and construction commenced
in 1837. Bishop Polding sent Therry to Tasmania in 1838 and altered the
original design of the church.
The
graveyard has some fine examples of monumental masonry reflecting the
Irish Catholic background of many of the early settlers of the district.
