Online Cemetery Search

If you are looking for someone at the Cemetery go to our new Deceased Search Tool, please note that only one field is required to be completed for the search to be successful.

General Information

Mona Vale General Cemetery is located at 107 Mona Vale Road, Mona Vale (UBD Map Reference 138 A3), although the vehicle entrance is now located on Fazzolari Avenue, Mona Vale.  For pedestrians, Sydney Buses and Forest Coach Lines provide bus transport that service the bus stop adjacent to the Cemetery on Mona Vale Road.

Mona Vale General Cemetery is a monumental cemetery with close to 6,400 burial sites, 1,100 wall niches and 1,000 memorial garden niches, which cater for the interment of cremation ashes. The Cemetery caters for a number of religious denominations as well as a non-sectarian area for those with no religious affiliation.

The Cemetery is open 365 days per year during daylight hours, with a Caretaker on site Monday to Thursday and every alternate Friday from 8am to 3.30pm. The usual hours of interment are between 9.am to 3.00pm Monday to Friday. Burial at other times may be permitted by arrangement with Cemetery Administration on (02) 9970 1341.

Should you need to view the layout of the Cemetery into its various religious denominations, please go to this link Mona Vale General Cemetery Map (18MB).

History

The land was dedicated as the 'Turimetta General Cemetery' on 18 October 1905, as that was the name for the village of Mona Vale at that time.  Prior to the appointment of Warringah Council as the Cemetery Trustee in 1929, people would apply to the local police station for permission to bury their dead and then undertake the burial themselves.  This probably explains the seemingly haphazard manner in which the early graves are arranged.  The earliest burials were in the Church of England and Methodist sections.  The oldest surviving headstone in the Cemetery is for Percy Johnston who died in 1914 aged two years.

The Cemetery was administered by trustees representing the various churches of that time, however, by 1926 the Cemetery was neglected and local people were urging Warringah Shire Council (proclaimed in 1906) to take over its management.  After the trustees had been consulted, Council took over management from 31 May 1929, although the Catholic Church retained control of their portion of the Cemetery until 1984. The Cemetery was surveyed and sectors were allocated for each denomination.

The original gate-posts at the former entrance of the Cemetery were built by local stonemason, Church Point storekeeper and boat builder, James Booth (c1863 -1941). Mr Booth was associated with a number of other important local structures in the area, including Dungarvon and St. John's Church (1906 -1907), both in Mona Vale.

When Pittwater ceded from Warringah Shire Council on May 1st 1992, Pittwater Council took over the management of the Cemetery and was officially appointed Trustee by Government Gazette in 2004.

For more information contact Local Studies at Mona Vale Library on (02) 9997 1600.

Genealogy

Council maintains a register of burials if you are searching for a family member or wish to confirm ownership of burial rights.  Please contact Cemetery Administration for more details on (02) 9970 1341.

Change of Address

If you own a burial site or memorial niche at the Cemetery and have moved any time in the last 80 years, please check that we have your new address as some of our older records from the 1930's and 1940's only record the name of the street people lived on without a number, by contacting Cemetery Administration on (02) 9970 1341 or by mail Pittwater Council, Attention Mona Vale General Cemetery, PO Box 882, Mona Vale 1660 or by email at pittwater_council@pittwater.nsw.gov.au

• Cemetery Request Form

Availability

Although the Cemetery is at over 95% capacity for in-ground burials, there are a number of burial sites still available for reservation or immediate burial.  We also have two memorial gardens for cremated ash remains and a small number of positions in our Wall Columbarium.

Please contact Cemetery Administration for more details on (02) 9970 1341.

Memorial Gardens

 Garden C - Memorial Garden - Niches available

 Garden D - Memorial Garden - Niches available

 Garden D - New Extension - Available now

SO Reynolds Columbarium Wall

Wall Niche - Niches available

Transfer of Burial Licence

The rising cost of purchasing a burial licence means that it is worth making an application to assume the ownership of a used or unused family burial site.  If you think you might have a claim and would like to know whether you are eligible please contact Cemetery Administration on (02) 9970 1341. 

What do you own? Burial Licence

Time and time again, we hear the commonly used statements "I have bought a grave" or "we own a grave at" - but this is not exactly true.

What purchasers do buy is a burial licence. That is, a licence to have themselves or any other person they nominate buried in that portion of land (grave) over which they are the registered holder of the "exclusive right of burial".

Furthermore, the owner of the exclusive right of burial is the only person who can authorise the placement of a memorial of any type on that grave.

Should the person being interred be the holder of the burial licence, then the licence becomes part of his or her estate, to be administered by his or her Executor. If there is no executor, then the next of kin takes charge.

The burial licence is a valuable item of one's estate and as such can be transferred or bequeathed to another person. However, this is not legally complete until such time as the register of the cemetery concerned has been amended to indicate that fact.

Many problems have arisen over the years and continue to do so because these facts are not known by the majority of burial licence holders.

Both the Cemeterians and Funeral directors should make their clients fully aware of their responsibilities when signing documents relating to the purchase of a burial licence (burial site) and that although a third person may pay the account, the person whose signature is on the relevant applications becomes the licence holder and the only person by law who can give directions as to what happens to the burial site.

Reprinted courtesy of David Blake 

Updated: 08 Feb 2012