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Kolkata (Calcutta) Sights

South Park Street Cemetery

1 reviews | Write a review

  • Address
    • cnr Park St & AJC Bose Rd
  • Price
    • donation expected
  • Hours
    • 7.30am-4.30pm Mon-Fri, 7.30am-11am Sat

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Lonely Planet review for South Park Street Cemetery

Today Park St is one of Kolkata’s top commercial avenues. But when it was constructed in the 1760s, it was a simple causeway across uninhabited marshlands built to allow mourners to access the then-new South Park Street Cemetery. These days that cemetery remains a wonderful oasis of calm with mossy Raj-era graves – from rotundas to soaring pyramids – jostling for space in a lightly manicured jungle. To support the cemetery’s maintenance, a Rs30 donation is appropriate, or buy the guidebook (Rs100) from the gatekeeper.

 

Traveller reviews for South Park Street Cemetery (1)

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    Fragments of The Raj Era

    king_sett recommends this,

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    The South Park Street cemetery was opened in 1767 and was closed down in 1790 after another cemetery was opened up a few paces down. But because of an epidemic in Calcutta in the mid 19th century, it was opened because of the alarming rise of deaths. Hence in certain parts the graves are seen in a haphazard manner, unlike most part of the cemetery.
    Notable names found in the graveyard are:
    Sir William Jones (Founder of Asiatic Society and probably the first foreign scholar in Indian Languages)

    Walter Dickens (Charles Dicken's Son, Cadet in The East India Company during Sepoy Mutiny)

    Major General Charles Stuart a.k.a. Hindoo Stuart (championed and embraced Hindu culture, his grave is designed like a Hindu Temple)

    Colonel Robert Kyd (Founder of the botanical Gardens at Calcutta)

    Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (Founder of Young Bengal and probably the 1st Anglo Indian poet/patriot)

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