Old Man's Valley Cemetery, Heritage-listed cemetery in Hornsby, Australia.
Old Man's Valley Cemetery is a burial ground in Hornsby, New South Wales, containing graves and memorials from 1879 to 1931. The site holds approximately 25 plots marked by headstones that reflect the lives of early European settlers in the local area.
The cemetery was established by Thomas Higgins, a Second Fleet convict's son who received a land grant in 1824. The burial ground remained in use until the early 1900s, when blue metal quarrying operations began reshaping the surrounding valley.
The cemetery grounds represent the transition from Aboriginal lands of Dharug and Ku-ring-gai peoples to European settlement patterns in New South Wales.
The cemetery is accessible via Quarry Road in Hornsby and offers visitors a quiet setting to explore the gravestones. Interpretative signs at the location explain the history of the burial ground and the Higgins family.
The site was once completely covered by surrounding forest and only became partially exposed through quarrying activities. Today, the weathered gravestones stand as remnants of a place caught between nature's reclamation and human history.
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