The second stage of Purewa’s popular Walk of Memories for ash interments has been completed.
The 250-metre-long extension provides 670 new plots for families to purchase in a tranquil garden-lined setting.
All plots will have a granite tablet for inscription by the family. The new area includes 13 larger size family plots that can accommodate four sets of ashes. A larger granite tablet is used that can be divided into quarters to allow inscriptions for each family member.
The extension runs along both sides of a newly created pathway which follows the eastern side of the cemetery and connects to the burial area at the bottom by the railway tracks.
Eventually the Walk of Memories will extend around the three-kilometre perimeter of Purewa providing ash interment options for many years to come.
The General Manager of Purewa, Alastair Crombie, says significant earthworks and construction of retaining walls were needed to place the pathway and plots effectively into the existing cemetery landscape.
“New kidney-shaped gardens are being created alongside the first 150 metres of the Walk of Memories extension on the left side, and five cherry trees have already been planted, which will be the centre-piece trees for these new individual kidney gardens,” he says.
“Thirty-nine of the new plots have been purchased by families to date and it’s expected there will be strong continuing interest in this lovely area. Purewa is fortunate to have a Board of Trustees that is dedicated to the ongoing progress and beautification of the cemetery, and to ensuring families have fitting choices about where to lay their loved ones’ ashes after cremation,” Alastair Crombie says.
The first stage of the Walk of Memories was built in 2011 offering 565 ash interment plots and is now almost fully purchased. It’s expected that the new extension will provide sufficient plots for up to ten years at present rates of cremation.
Purewa offers one of the widest ranges of memorialisation options in New Zealand with columbarium niche walls, ash lawns and kidney-shaped gardens available as well as a Mosaic Butterfly Pathway for still born and new-born babies opened in 2018.
While burial remains a choice for many families cremation has been increasing in numbers over the past few years.
