cemetary

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One of the Lovemore family graveyards

he Lovemore surname is closely linked to Port Elizabeth and it's early history, specially out in the western side of the city.  This is all thanks to one Henry LOVEMORE who left England to settle in Port Elizabeth in 1820.  Although he came at the time of the British Settlers who settled east of the city around Grahamstown and Bathurst, Lovemore paid for his passage and purchased Bushy Park, then known as Klaas Kraal, for the princely sum of one thousand pounds.Lore has it that…

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09/09/2013
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Scottish Cemetery

Port Elizabeth has some wonderful historic cemeteries, one of them the Scottish Cemetery in St Georges Park.  The first cemetery in Port Elizabeth was St Mary's Cemetery which started as a military cemetery, but after the arrival of the British Settlers it was assigned to the St Mary's Collegiate Church and opened for the burial of all Christians in the town.  The growth of the town increased the demands placed upon St Mary's Cemetery and allocations of small pieces of land on…

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27/02/2013
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The grave of George Impey

Browsing through the historic cemeteries in Port Elizabeth I often find the graves of people who were prominent Port Elizabeth residents back in its early days.  One of the graves I found in the St Mary's Cemetery belongs to George Impey who died in 1890 and was the editor and part proprietor of the Eastern Province Herald and the first president of the Newspaper Press Union. 

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13/09/2012
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Rev Francis McCleland’s grave

Over the last two years every time I visited the St Mary's Cemetery I've had a look for Rev Francis McCleland's grave without any success.  Grizel Hart, the curator at No.7 Castle Hill, explained to me where to find it and on my last visit - after again walking right past it twice - I found it.  Rev Francis McCleland came to to Algoa Bay in one of the 1820 British Settler parties and became colonial chaplain in Port Elizabeth.  He bought…

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11/04/2012
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St Mary’s Cemetery gate

The entrance into the historic St Mary's Cemetery at the bottom of Valley Road.  I love wandering through St Mary's and discovering all the old graves, some belonging to original 1820 British Settlers.

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18/03/2012
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Grave Search #2

The second grave in my Grave Search series was a request I received not long after the first one.  Indigo asked me if it wasn't possible to track down her great grandmother's grave in the South End Cemetery.  After the first search I knew where to go and find the information and found this one a lot easier than the first.

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23/10/2010
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Grave search 1

Regular readers of both my blogs probably know of my fascination with old cemeteries which leads to often posting grave pictures, specially on The Firefly Photo Files. The only reason I post most on there and not here is cause I often discover interesting grave yards in small town while on holiday and weekend outings and it doesn't fall within the Port Elizabeth area.  Anyway, due to the fact that I post these I have had a couple of people e-mailing…

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09/10/2010
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Graves at St Mary’s

The old St Mary's Cemetery is situated between South End and the city centre close to where the Baakens River flows into the Port Elizabeth Harbour. Some of the graves date back to the mid 1800's and include some of the original British Settlers who arrived on our shores in 1820. For a couple more of my pictures of the cemetery, visit The Firefly Photo Files here and here. The bridge in the background is part of the Settlers Freeway.

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29/08/2010