If you can't beat it, join it ...

I mentioned on Monday that Newtown is a suburb in which graffiti is, if not encouraged, then not actively discouraged. There are parts of the suburb where entire walls are covered. It is a very old, quite delapidated inner-city suburb. Some of the graffiti looks good. Other bits are just tags, with very little artistic merit, and no socio-political point. These buildings are along another boundary of the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park. The murals here are quite suitable, IMHO.

Theme Day - Good fences make good Neighbours: from the Inside

On the inside of the wall that fences off the St Stephen's graveyard from the Camperdown Memorial Rest park, beauty reigns supreme. Remember here, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is the wild, rampant beauty of decay and neglect. Wilful neglect, mind you. I for one, would not wish this graveyard to be neatly tended and trimmed.

Eric at PDP tells me that 1st November is All Soul's Saints' Day, the day for visiting departed in cemeteries around the country.


Remember some of the history from yesterday's view of the outside of this wall. The larger cemetery was established in 1848 and closed - full - in 1867. In 1948, hundred of headstones from around the wider park were moved to within church grounds, and laid up against the stone wall. They were nailed to the wall, in good faith. However, the nails rusted, and the headstones cracked. There are tours on the first Sunday of each month. But, I am all for the solitary meander, and the soft touch upon crumbling headsones. Beauty is fact enough.

Click here to view thumbnails from around the world for this Theme Day.

Good fences make good Neighbours: from the Outside

This post may sadden you, it may disgust you, or it might even anger you. But what you are seeing here is the norm for Newtown. Graffiti is encouraged in this suburb. I am sure they would like 'quality' graffiti, but as you will see, that is rarely the case.


This is the sandstone wall which fences off St Stephen's church and graveyard. Originally, the graveyard had been a cemetery, with the church being added as an after-thought. The cemetery was fenced off by a group of businessmen to turn a profit in 1848. And, they succeeded! The cemetery (which was just over 12 acres) was closed in 1867 having buried about 17,000 bodies. The church was built near the main gates to the cemetery in 1874, and over the decades the cemetery fell to wrack and ruin. Eventually, three quarters of Camperdown Cemetery was resumed in 1948 for Camperdown Memorial Rest Park which opened in 1951. The bodies were left in the ground; just the headstones moved in behind this sandstone wall.

Tomorrow, come and look on the inside of this fence.

In the Anglican tradition

St Stephen's was designed by Edmund Blackett and erected in 1874. This was well after the cemetery that surrounds it, was full to overflowing.


The day of my visit, the church was deserted, save for a pair of electricians who graciously gave me the run of the place. I even braved the rickety steps up to the choir stalls. St Stephen's is unusual in that it has an attached graveyard. This is not the usual case in suburban Sydney, unlike parts of the UK.

Eye of the Beholder

One man's dreaming is another man's religion. The graffiti on the Mary Street wall is an interpretation of one of our indigenous 'dreaming' stories. Mostly these stories tell of man's relationship to the land and to the sky.

Behind the sandstone fence, is St Stephen's in Newtown which is a manifestation of the holy trinity on earth. The stories told within are of man's relationship with a god, in life and in death.


Note that this is the same intersection as yesterday, just from a different perspective. I am not sure what to make of the obvious fact that the animals are all going the wrong way. Or maybe the arrow is going the wrong way. Let's just call it 'creative dissonance'.

People make the world go around

Whilst mooching around waiting to have coffee with friends who are down for the week from the North Coast, I headed over to the old Camperdown Cemetery which is huddled around St Stephen's in Newtown. I think this intersection could be called 'busy' even with no human activity whatsoever! Not sure I would have a lot of confidence riding a bike around that corner.

Paying our respects

Although this building in King Street was built to honour J. Palmer, Esq. in 1886, by the time of the Newtown jubilee in 1912, the main tennant was one P. Gleeson, Esq. a "Grocer & Provision Merchant" who was shamelessly pushing "Green Coupons". Burnished by late afternoon light, the facade has been lovingly restored through the years.


Meandering eastward along King Street, with the sun streaming over my shoulder, my breathing became sharper with each fine example that I came across and my shoulders sagged with every 100 yard patch where the past had been obliterated by some modern abomination.


Although incomplete, the final restoration may just be an example of biting off more than one can chew. However, it was one of the few "antique" facades dedicated to a woman.