Waverley Cemetery on the Sea

Located high on the cliffs, overlooking Bronte beach, sits Waverley cemetery. It is a beautiful and peaceful spot, the last resting place of many famous and not so famous people. It is also a haunting place, especially if you visit on a cold, overcast and windswept day and walk among the Victorian and Edwardian monuments, pause to read the grave stones and ponder who was buried here and what lives did they lead. There are superstitious beliefs which surround the cemetery too, like the belief that crows gather where a body will soon be buried.

Buried at Waverley Cemetery are some of Australia's most notable historical figures, like Henry Lawson, Dorothea MacKellar, Henry Kendall, Australia's first Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton and many others.The site is also available for weddings, for couples requiring a unique and darkly romantic location to make their vows.

For more energetic souls, it is possible to take the celebrated coastal walk from Waverley Cemetery to Bondi Beach and perhaps stop off along the way for a dip in the Bronte Bogey Hole, or rest at the waterfall at the top of Bronte Park, where the flowing stream, lush vegetation and singing birds are a celebration of life itself.

My spirit fancies it can hear
The song I cannot sing.

Henry Kendall

The site of Waverley cemetery has also featured in some notable films, the earliest being a Spanish film called Pigiama Giallo (The Pyjama Girl Case). In 1979 the cemetery was used again for the film Tim featuring Mel Gibson, in his handsome youth. The Baywatch TV series and Home and Away series also used the site. More recently the film Dirty Deeds and a Bollywood movie used the location.