The Friends of Mays Hill Cemetery
***2023 Dates for your Diary***
Saturday 18th March - 1.00pm Public Meeting - Guest Speaker TBA
Saturday 15th April -1.00pm Special Public Meeting - This meeting will be held at 'Linnwood' 25 Byron Road, Guildford and will be a combined meeting of a number of cemetery groups from the Parramatta and Western Sydney area. Always an interesting meeting..........Visitors Welcome. Contact us for more details. Guest Speaker : Warren Fahey - Author of "Dead & Buried" A curious history of Sydney's earliest burial grounds.
Sunday 15th May - 2.00pm - 4pm Cemetery Tour as part of the National Trust Australian Heritage Festival with its theme of "Curiosity". Bookings Essential
Sunday 29th April - 2pm - 4pm Cemetery Tour - as part of the Australian Heritage Festival with its theme of "Shared Stories". Bookings Essential. For more information phone: 9633 9562 or 0428 284 275
Saturday 17th June - 1.00pm - Public Meeting - Guest Speaker TBA
Sunday 25th June 10.00am - 2.00pm - Garden Working Bee - Weather permitting - come along and help pull out some weeds! Don't forget to bring your gardening gloves and small gardening tools. Contact us for more details. BBQ Lunch available - $10.00 per person .
Saturday 19th August - 1.00pm Public Meeting and Annual General Meeting. Guest Speaker:TBA
Sunday 27th August - 9.ooam - 5.00pm Members Bus tour. Bookings Essential
Sunday 17th September - 10.00am - 2.00pm. Garden Working Bee - Weather permitting we will be having another working bee at the cemetery, so bring your gloves and gardening tools to do some weeding and tidying up in the cemetery. BBQ Lunch available - $10.00 per person.
Saturday 21st October - 1.00pm Public Meeting. Guest Speaker : TBA
Saturday 16th December - 1.00pm Public Meeting and Christmas Afternoon Tea
The Friends of Mays Hill Cemetery meet in the small hall at the Jones Park complex, corner of Burnett & Landsowne Streets, Merrylands.
Visitors Welcome!
Like to know more - or perhaps become a Friend of Mays Hill Cemetery? Just click on one (or more) of the following:
Any queries? Contact us at: mayshillcemetery@yahoo.com.au
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A SHORT HISTORY OF MAYS HILL CEMETERY
(Also known as The Western Road Cemetery)
Copied in part from "The Parramatta Cemeteries - MAYS HILL" by Judith Dunn and published by Parramatta and District Historical Society.
"Mays Hill Cemetery is in reality two distinct cemeteries appropriated for the Presbyterians and Baptists of the Parramatta area in 1839 and 1849 respectively. They were deliberately situated just outside the town boundary near the top of Mays Hill ridge in a sparsely populated area, yet within reasonable reach of the local inhabitants.............
The first entry in the Presbyterian burial register is Elizabeth McKay, abode George and Church Streets, died 9th October 1843 aged 34 years......Her profession was listed as publican (her husband's profession)..........The impressive family memorial still stands and is indicative of their position in Parramatta society........Her husband, John McKay, was valet to Governor Gipps but left his employ and became licensee of Richard Rouse's Australian Arms Inn.........
The first entry in the Baptist burial register is William Hopkins Carey, buried 25th September 1852 aged 22years. This is curious as he was not buried in Mays Hill but in the Independent section of the Devonshire Street cemetery, now the site of Central Station, Sydney. A memorial service was however, held for him in Parramatta. William Carey was, despite his young age, a highly regarded Minister to the Baptist community and his death was a critical event in the early history of the church. Through a quirk of fate William was eventually re-interred in Mays Hill when Devonshire Street cemetery was demolished to make way for the railway, In this manner his headstone is the oldest in the cemetery but was erected elsewhere first.
The earliest memorial to be erected in the Baptist Cemetery records the second burial in the register, Arthur Stapleton, a child of sixteen months who died on 8th December 1853.
During 2016 the local government boundaries between the former Holroyd City Council and Parramatta City Councils were altered and Mays Hill Cemetery now lies within the boundary of the new City of Parramatta Council.
The cemetery is also cared for by the Friends of Mays Hill Cemetery.
