Port Macquarie Second Burying Ground is a heritage-listed former cemetery at Gordon Street, Port Macquarie, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was in use from 1824 to 1886. The property is owned by Port Macquarie-Hastings Council (Local Government). It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 1 July 2005. History The dramatic rise in the population of Port Macquarie and consequent increase in deaths, required authorities to select a new burying ground to replace the first one on Allman Hill, overlooking the mouth of the Hastings River. The site chosen was a peninsula of ground south of the settlement, at the confluence of the present Wrights and Kooloonbung Creeks. The four acre site selected had been described by John Oxley in 1818 as being bushy, and hence must have been cleared for the purposes of a cemetery. The first burial, that of an infant, Elizabeth Murphy, took place towards the south end of the peninsula on 15 November 1824. The Second Burying Ground was dedicated as a Reserve for the Preservation of Graves on 2 July 1863. Between 1824 and 1886, when the cemetery was closed to burials, some 1,400 individuals were interred there, many of them convicts from the early penal settlement. On 21 December 1910, the Second Burying Ground was formally dedicated for the Preservation of Graves. The conditions of the cemetery deteriorated for several decades, and it was not until the 1960s that efforts were made to restore and recognise the significance of the cemetery as the last resting place of many of those who had contributed to the establishment and development of Port Macquarie and the Hastings district. Unfortunately by this time many of the burial sites had become obscured and most monuments had fallen into disrepair. Today only 92 funerary monuments or parts thereof remain on site. A memorial plaque to those interred was erected in April 1963. In the 1980s, the site was converted to a Nature Park with planting of ornamental trees and shrubs, the construction of a brick pathway, erection of directional signage and some interpretative signs. A pavilion, interpretative shelter and toilet block were erected 1990s. Some significant monuments were restored in the early 1990s. Description The Second Burying Ground occupies a hilly peninsula at the southern edge of the commercial area of Port Macquarie, north of the confluence of the present day Wrights and