General News
27 June, 2025
Majorca Cemetery fence upgrades
The imagery of a crumbling, old cemetery has been shaken up in Majorca with the upgrade of a new perimeter fence for the historic site.
The Majorca Cemetery’s shiny new metal fenceline goes to show the more than 150-year-old site isn’t just for the dead, but the living.
Members of the Majorca Cemetery Trust gathered earlier this week to celebrate the accomplishment which has been years in the making.
The original concrete fence, rusted and eroding, dated back to the 1920s at least. Trust member Patricia Rainbow said the original fence’s condition was “very poor”.
“It was concrete plinths that had all fallen apart and rusted,” she said.
It meant the cemetery’s committee, made up of volunteers, were all smiles despite the rain when they met earlier this week.
The work was made possible thanks to the State Government’s Tiny Towns fund. Last year the project was awarded $37,500 with Central Goldfields Shire Council contributing $12,500.
For committee member Aileen Howard, the extent of the work came as a shock.
“We thought it was only going to be the front. It’s really made a big improvement,” she said.
Like Majorca, the cemetery has slowed down over the years with the bustling of the gold rush a distant memory, and the number of recent burials counted on one hand.
But for the committee members, that’s beside the point. Over a hundred years of residents rest there, some their own relatives, which makes them custodians of the town’s history — as Ms Howard explained.
“There’s not a lot of history left in Majorca now with the store gone,” she said.
Central Goldfields Shire councillor Anna De Villiers was thrilled to see the upgrade completed and stressed the importance of grant funding.
“You know it needs to be done but it’s that feeling of helplessness,” she said.
“[It] wouldn’t happen any other way.”
Now the fenceline is complete there’s still more work to be done, as outlined in the community plan.
Beyond more funding needed for toilets, road improvements, and maintaining the historic building on site, committee member Kevin Hudson hopes to scan the site to learn how many people have been buried there.
After 18 years of volunteering he’s learned where the ground is uneven, where he thinks people might be buried without a headstone. It’s a project some committee members hope to complete out of respect of those buried there.
In the meantime, the volunteers will continue their contributions in the middle of a piece of Majorca’s history, a fact that doesn’t escape Ms Rainbow.
“I won’t be around seeing [the fence] needing repair, but that’s fine,” she said.