Christian graves in churchyards were traditionally aligned
on an east-west axis, as was the church itself. Parishioners' graves faced east
- the head was at the west end of the grave and the foot at the east. The
exceptions were gravestones of the priests/ministers which faced the other way.
The reason for this was that it was believed that on the day of resurrection
the parishioners would rise up and face the direction of Jesus’s second coming
in Jerusalem, traditionally due east. At that point their priests/ministers
would also rise up and be ready facing their flocks of parishioners. (Acknowledgement: David Fairhurst, www.quora.com)
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Typical churchyard (from Quora) |
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St Michael’s churchyard Bowness-on-Solway. Bell memorial stone extreme left. |
Municipal cemeteries initially followed a similar pattern
but later, after World War II, factors such as expense, shortage of labour and
a gradual decline in importance of Christian traditions brought a change in arrangements of
graveyards.
Space became critical and remains a problem with large municipal
cemeteries such as Stellawood in Umbilo, Durban. Here, graves are recycled –
usually those without headstones (and there are many such) are the first to
undergo recycling. It is possible to buy or lease the family plot and continue
to use it for related burials. However, today cremation is increasingly the
choice made.
In the case of the Point graveyard, Durban, where some of the earliest Natal settlers were buried, the graves were moved to West Street Cemetery in 1896. The memorial inscriptions read like a roll-call of Natal colonial residents. A list of those buried at the Point Cemetery and details of the exhumation of the remains of colonists and their re-interment at West Street Cemetery in 1896 can be seen at molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/heritage-month-point-settlers-memorial.html.
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The Point Settlers' Memorial, West Street Cemetery |
