# The cemetery the records kept

> Its burial registers open in April 1851 and run into the 1970s — the founding dead of Christchurch kept in three volumes, nine plans, and a book of receipts.

Published 15 September 2026 · written automatically from cited documents; not reviewed by a person · https://www.chch.live/article/the-cemetery-the-records-kept

Barbadoes Street Cemetery's own account of itself is kept in three Church of England registers. No. 1 opens on 9 April 1851; No. 3 closes in the 1970s. Between them the ground took in the city's dead in order of burial — each entry naming who was buried and when, their age and sex, their parents or husband, their rank or profession, where they lived, and who performed the ceremony.

The ground itself was drawn block by block in nine historical plot plans — bordered by Barbadoes Street to the west and Cambridge Terrace to the south and east, the plots not consistently numbered. Beside the lych-gate in block 3A, one plot is noted in the cataloguing as apparently infant graves.

The plots were sold, and a separate book keeps the money side of the ground: receipt numbers, purchasers' names, plot numbers and sizes, and amounts paid, its later pages recording deposits on part-purchased plots, the completed purchase, and when title was given.

The city grew up around the graves. By 1945 a view across the headstones showed residential houses over the back fence; by 1979 the Christchurch Star's negatives show graves and headstones weathered, broken or fallen over. In 2005 headstones still stood in the western portion.

What survives is both the ground and its record — the registers, the nine plans, the book of receipts, the photographs — a cemetery kept as its own archive kept it.

## Sources
- Barbadoes Street Cemetery: alphabetical list of burials, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26181
- Barbadoes St Cemetery: index to cemetery registers, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26180
- Barbadoes St Cemetery, Church of England, Register no. 1, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26179
- Barbadoes St. Register No. 2, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26183
- Register No. 3, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26185
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 1B, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12871
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 1A, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12870
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 2A & 2B, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12872
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 3B, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12874
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 3A, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12873
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 4A, rows A-N, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12876
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - area 4A, rows A-L, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12875
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - areas 4B, rows O-Aa, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12878
- Barbadoes St Cemetery plan - areas 4B, rows M-T, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/maps-plans/cemeteries/barbadoesstreet/ccl-cs-12877
- Barbadoes Street. Burial plots book, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26184
- Barbadoes Street. Cemetery book, 1864-1920, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/barbadoesregisters/ccl-cs-26182
- Barbadoes Street Cemetery headstones, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/cccarchives/glassplates/ccl-cs-119996
- Barbadoes Street Cemetery, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/star/negatives/1970/ccl-cs-12297
- Barbadoes Street Cemetery, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/star/negatives/1979/ccl-cs-113209
- Barbadoes Street Cemetery, https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/community/obeirne/ccl-cs-118345