St Bathans Catholic Cemetery

Located in the historic township of St Bathans is this delightful church graveyard, the only example of its kind in Central Otago.

While less common in New Zealand, church graveyards were once the only place for burials in the British Isles, until the public cemetery movement in the early 1800s.

This graveyard is set around the mud brick-constructed St Patrick's Church erected in 1892 and built to replace an earlier church destroyed by a storm in the 1870s. With many of the early gold miners being of Irish descent, some are likely to have been buried in this cemetery.

This private cemetery is owned and maintained by the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin. To contact the Diocese email archives@cdd.org.nz

Research more of the history and records of this cemetery here

Local Contact

Paddy Enright
Phone: (03) 447 3365
Email: enrightduo@gmail.com