The large sign, near the Sexton's Cottage Museum has a map of the Rest Park, detailing where the other History Trail Signs are, and where other features are in the Park. It has the following information.
St. Thomas' Rest Park History Trail
#1 Imagine the Rest Park is An Open-Air Museum
St. Thomas' Rest Park is the site of the former St. Thomas' Cemetery [Anglican] which was the first cemetery established on the northern side of the [Sydney] Harbour. St. Thomas' Cemetery was a smallish, parish burial ground, designed as a simple rectangular grid. Although now converted to a rest park, some features of the cemetery can still be seen.
The land for St. Thomas' Cemetery was donated to the Anglican parish of St Leonards in 1845 by Alexander Berry, in order to secure a burial place for his wife, Elizabeth. The Cemetery eventually contained approximately 4000 graves, though only a small proportion of the burials are marked by headstones now. The first burial was in 1845, the in 1950.
The second St. Thomas' Church, 1898
The Church is located over a kilometre from the Cemetery, on the corner of West and Church Streets, North Sydney. It was erected in stages over the top of the original St. Thomas' Church to minimise disruption to services.
As you walk around the Rest Park, imagine you are in an open-air museum. By studying the inscriptions on the headstones you can piece together a picture of North Sydney and its people, who lived there, what they did for a living, if they were wealthy or poor. Monuments and headstones generally record dates of birth and death, and may include other details such as place of origin, names of relatives, personal history and cause of death.
As you follow this History Trail you will see that the styles of monuments and gravestones also tell us a lot about community attitudes to death, and events which had a major impact on society. For example the Victorian period of mourning (1837 - 1901), is characterised by elaborate headstones, whereas headstones in the years following World War I are much simpler.
Visited: 0850, Saturday, 2 December, 2017
The link below is the Council website, for the Park - it may come up as BLOCKED, depending on your browser settings.