As one of New Zealand’s oldest public burying grounds, Heads Road Cemetery is the resting place of many of Wanganui’s early settlers.

The site was identified by the New Zealand Company surveyors in 1841 as being an appropriate place for a cemetery for the new town of Petre (as Wanganui was first known) and the first burial took place here in 1843.  The cemetery developed over time, with the Catholic cemetery across Heads Road opening in 1853 and a new layout designed for the main part of the cemetery in 1868.  There was also a Jewish cemetery adjacent to the Catholic one; the headstones have been replaced with a monument listing the names of those known to be buried there.

Heads Road Cemetery closed in 1914 when a new cemetery for Wanganui was opened in Aramoho.  However, people could still be buried in a family plot.  On Boxing Day, the motorcycle race known as the Cemetery Circuit takes place on streets around the cemetery.

Heads Road Cemetery is a Category I registered Historic Place, being notable for the number of burials of soldiers involved in the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s, when Wanganui was a garrison town, as well as many other distinguished New Zealanders, including John Ballance who was Premier in the early 1890s.

The Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust can organise guided walks for groups.  Burial records and monumental inscriptions can be consulted at the Alexander Heritage and Research Library in Queen’s Park, open weekday afternoons.