A section of Dundee’s famed Western Cemetery, which has been closed to new internments for several years, could be reopened as part of a plan which would raise much-needed funds for the conservation of the old burial ground.
Members of the Western Cemetery Association are considering the plan, in collaboration with Dundee City Council, which would see a space set aside for the burial of urns and the scattering of ashes. It is hoped that any profits from the venture could be used to help restore the plot formerly known as The Drawing Room of Heaven because of its population of captains of industry and city benefactors to its former glory.
The grounds of the Perth Road cemetery, which was launched as a commercial enterprise in 1845 and bought by the city council for £1 in 1979, are now littered with a number of broken memorials.
It has been regarded as effectively full for a number of years, though internments can still take place on family plots, but the friends’ association have already garnered the approval of the local community for their plan and will now look at what needs to be done to bring the idea about.
The group’s Ann Prescott said reopening the burial ground could prove very popular.
“For a long time a group of us have been trying to improve the environment of the cemetery,” she said. “We have a lot of visitors coming from all over the world to see it and it used to be a very famous and well-kept place.
“The council do what they can, but we know that times are hard.
“The idea is to open an urnfield there which would open the ground up again for local people who wish to have their ashes buried or scattered. There’s a bit at the top of the site which we would like to develop for woodland burials, in time.
“The advantage is that we would get some revenue to help with the upkeep of the cemetery we’re hoping the profits from the burials could be ploughed back in.”
Ms Prescott said the site was a “snapshot” of the city’s former movers and shakers.
“The historic side of the cemetery is very important to the history of Dundee,” she said. “You can tell an awful lot from the monuments about the people and also the fashions of the time.
“For instance, you can see how Egyptology was popular and that is in parallel with the architecture of the time too.”
Many well-known people have been buried in the Western Cemetery, including James Bowman Lindsay, born in 1799 at Carmyllie, and a pioneer of electricity, Baron Armitstead, whose trust still supports many good causes in Dundee, and David Pae, who edited D. C. Thomson publications and pioneered serialised fiction in Victorian times.
Others include Thomas Hunter Cox from the famed Lochee jute firm, Preston Watson, an aeronautical pioneer who some claim made the world’s first powered flight over the Carse of Gowrie several months before the Wright brothers in America, and former city Lord Provost Sir William High.
The association has already planted new borders to encourage butterflies and other wildlife to the cemetery.