Woodside Methodist Cemetery

The closure of the old Woodside Methodist cemetery in 1975.

Bruce Ringer

Across Wiri Station Road from the Civic Centre and outside Rainbow’s End stands a low wall with the words: ‘Woodside Methodist Cemetery: Erected in Memory of the Early Settlers of the District’. This is one of the few places near the city centre that still evokes something of the area’s rural past.

A Methodist chapel was first established at Woodside (Wiri) in 1854. It was replaced in 1901 and moved to Manurewa in 1909. The associated cemetery, however, remained behind. By the 1970s the site was needed to widen Wiri Station Road.

Closure of the cemetery was authorised by act of Parliament in 1975. A portion of the land was set aside for a memorial: a small garden, communal grave, simple cairn and commemorative plaque. This was dedicated on 25 November 1978.

What became of the old cemetery headstones? The Methodist Church trustees requested they form no part of the memorial. Manukau City Council staff made every effort to consult the next-of-kin. A few families chose to uplift their headstones. The remainder went into storage at the East Tamaki depot. It is believed that they later ended up as fill under a road.

For more information: see Manukau’s Journey and The Woodside Methodist Cemetery (long version).

Publication record: first published in Connexions, no. 83, December 2005, p. 4. Revised for publication on the Manukau Libraries website in September 2009.

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