Project Announcement

ROSS BAY CEMETERY GATE PROJECT

The executive of the Old Cemeteries Society is pleased and excited to announce our project for 2022.

Ross Bay Cemetery celebrates its 150 anniversary in March 1st 2023.
We have been working with the City of Victoria for a number of years on plans to erect a memorial gate at the Stannard Street entrance to Ross Bay Cemetery and are now ready to begin the build.

RBC Short History

Victoria’s Ross Bay Cemetery formally opened on March 1, 1873 to serve the burial needs of the growing city of Victoria, BC, Canada. Overlooking Ross Bay, it is now 11 hectares in size (27.5 acres) and has almost 30,000 interments.

After Fort Victoria was founded in 1843, a small graveyard was opened at what is now the southwest corner of Douglas St. and Johnson St. In 1855, a new cemetery was opened, the Quadra Street Cemetery, now known as the Old Burying Ground (or Pioneer Square).

As the Quadra Street Cemetery was filling up, the city looked for a good location for a new, larger cemetery. The original site the city chose for Victoria’s new cemetery was 47 acres just outside the city near Ogden Point. The land was given to Victoria’s Cemetery Trustees in 1872 and was to have 12 acres cleared for use right away. Many people opposed this site, including Dr. J.S. Helmcken. They said it was too valuable to use for a cemetery, and it was a health risk because it was on the city’s windward side. Taking the protests of the citizens to heart, the city sold some of the land and bought 13 acres of cleared land at Ross Bay from Robert Burnaby (the man for whom the municipality of Burnaby would be named) for $300 per acre. By October 1872, the site was being laid out and drained, and by the following March, plots were being offered for sale. The cemetery was named Ross Bay Cemetery because it is beside Ross Bay. The bay was named after Isabella Ross who had purchased the land in the 1860’s.

The cemetery was originally fenced with a formal wooden gate across from what is now “Ross Bay Villa”. This photo shows the formal gate as it was in 1921.

Statement of Significance

DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE

Ross Bay Cemetery is a 27.5 acre graveyard located between Fairfield and Dallas Roads, bounded by Memorial Crescent on the west and the properties on St. Charles Street on the east.

HERITAGE VALUE

Ross Bay Cemetery is the most important heritage cemetery in British Columbia; its value lies in its historic monuments and largely intact historic landscape.

The over 20,000 graves of Ross Bay Cemetery – many of which are marked with magnificent locally carved head stones – provide a physical record of local, regional, and provincial culture and history. This cemetery is a museum of over one hundred years of the province’s most historical figures, such as Sir James Douglas, Matthew Baillie Begbie, and Emily Carr.

The cemetery remains largely true to its 1872 layout; the curving carriageways radiating from a central axis, variety of historic plantings, and arboreal landscape survive as physical reminders of the nineteenth century planning which intended the cemetery to be a romantic and peaceful oasis, well suited to quiet reflection and contemplation. Division of the cemetery into sections by religious denominations demonstrates the influence of local churches on the planning of the cemetery. The evolution of this landscape, as illustrated by such additions as the seawall (1911), plantings (1920s and 1930s), and the trees along Dallas Road represent later concerns to maintain the peaceful state of the environment in a growing residential suburb.

The location of the cemetery in Fairfield close to the Dallas Road shoreline is significant; originally considered to be well outside of the city, this once rural place was chosen after the citizens of James Bay had rejected the plan for it to be built in their neighbourhood. Notably, the land which comprises Ross Bay Cemetery was originally the farm of Isabella Ross, the widow of Charles Ross, a Fort Victoria founder. Surrounded by main transportation routes, local businesses, and a number of historic houses, Ross Bay Cemetery is a 19th century oasis in an area of modern suburban development.

Source: City of Victoria Planning and Development Department

CHARACTER-DEFINING ELEMENTS

The character-defining elements of the Ross Bay Cemetery include:

• the boundaries of the 27.5 acre site, in particular the seawall on Dallas Road, Fairfield Road, and Memorial Crescent;
• the views of the ocean from the cemetery through the Dallas Road plantings;
• elements of the historic landscape relevant to its 1872 design, such as curving carriageways and surviving plantings;
• plantings and carriageways from the 1930s and 1940s;
• all marked and unmarked graves;
• the variety of carved headstones and grave markers, attributable to a number of historic local monument makers, and which distinguish graves of various religious denominations, ethnic groups, social classes, and occupations.