A cool breeze did not deter around 35 people who attended the Bluff History Group’s Greenpoint Cemetery Tour on Sunday. That number included one lady who had travelled from Timaru for the event.

The tour, part of N.Z. Cemeteries Week, commenced at the Lost at Sea memorial, an area created by the Bluff Community Board after a request in 1990 from a woman wanting a tangible reminder of her son who was lost at sea. The feature anchor at the memorial, dating from the 1860s, was donated by Bluff School and is believed to have come from the ‘England’s Glory’ which was wrecked in Foveaux Strait just behind Bluff Hill on November 7th 1881.

Attendees were able to add to the stories compiled by Bluff History Group and it made for an enjoyable gathering while it was also noteworthy that quite a number of graves had received visits recently to refresh floral tributes leaving the area looking good for the day.

The tour also visited the graves of the first three interments at the Greenpoint Cemetery. These included Locksley (known as Peter) Needham, who was the first person interred at the cemetery in September 1960. After the funeral service at his Greenhills residence, he was interred at what was known then as Bluff Memorial Park Cemetery. The second interment was that of Bob Hutchinson, a ships fireman of Greenpoint, and the third was Alexander Forrest, originally from Scotland.

The tour saw the History Group spend hundreds of hours carrying out research to allow them to make it a very informative event for all those who attended.

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