Welcome to the Avenel Cemetery Trust Website

This website contains information on how to contact the trust and details on interment fees.

It also contains maps, the ability to search records and tombstone photographs of interments in the cemetery.

We hope the information contained on this website provides you with the information you are seeking.

Cemetery Background Introduction

The Trust is the responsible body for managing and maintaining the Cemetery. Members of the Trust are appointed by the Government, and answer to the Secretary of the Dept. of Health.

The Avenel Cemetery Trust meets bi-monthly on the 2nd Monday of the month and all members of the Trust are Volunteers.

If you find a mistake in the contents of this website, can your please contact a Trust member and we will attempt to rectify the problem or issue.

The Cemetery on its current site was established on the 30th March 1863 (160 years ago) and it is well possible that some records are unable to be located or have become unreadable over those 160 years.

If you take the time to meander through the cemetery you will see the head stones of some notable persons including deceased prominent local farmers and business people, returned service men, and Edward (RED) Kelly, father of NED KELLY who was born in Ireland in 1821 and died in Avenel in 1866.

The Kelly family had a small farm nearby and Ned attended the Avenel State School.

The head stones in the old section of the monumental section of the cemetery tell the story of how tough life was in those early pioneering days with not many adults surviving to the age of 60 years and many children only surviving a few months.

The first cemetery in the Avenel area was in the Parish of Mangalore approximately two kilometres south of the town which is now private property.

There are three head stones remaining on that site which tells how difficult life was in those days.

A headstone for Mr. Mutton tells he was buried there in 1856. Another memorial tells how difficult life was in those early days where Margaret McLaughlin died at age 35 after having given birth to 10 children of which only 3 survived.

The cemetery is situated on the corner of Queen St and Ewings Rd. Its formal address is 19 Queen St, Avenel, 3664, being in the middle of Avenel.

It is a 5 acre site and consists of a number of sections; the Old Section (closed to new interments), the New Section, the Lawn Cemetery, the Rose Garden and the Niche Wall.

The Avenue of Trees

In recent times the Trust has undertaken some major works and improvements with the financial assistance from the Dept. of Health, the Nagambie Branch of the Bendigo Bank and four anonymous donors along with Trust funds.

We have installed a descriptive plaque and the rock on which it resides inside the Queen St entrance. In addition, new concrete edging along the driveway, new beams in the lawn cemetery, a new avenue of trees with over 80 trees planetd along with a dripper watering system, new bench seats, a new ride on mower, solar panels for battery charging the mowers, forty tonnes of granitic sand to upgrade paths, the installation of a new gazebo, and recently new signage at the front gates.

Currently the Trust is in the process of re mapping all sections of the cemetery, installing new signage and restoring the pathways inside the cemetery.