Transcript for 'The Hobson Walk – Symonds Street Cemetery'

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[Instrumental music plays. Auckland Council pōhutukawa logo sits in the middle of the screen with aucklandcouncil.govt.nz below it.]

[Video: Footage of Shale Chambers talking. There are trees in the background. Text in the bottom left of the screen reads: Shale Chambers, Waitematā Local Board - Chair.]

Shale: Welcome to Symonds Street Cemetery in the heart of Auckland City. This is Auckland's oldest cemetery established in 1842.

[Video: Footage of Shale walking through the cemetery and past gravestones.]

Shale: The cemetery became a public park in 1908, with the final and last burials in the 1950s. We have developed a number of walks where you can experience the cemetery and learn about some of the people who are buried here.

[Video: Footage of William Hobson's grave surrounded by a black metal fence and two people standing behind the grave. This is followed by footage around the base of the grave and the inscription on the top of the grave.]

Shale: The Hobson Walk starts with Hobson's grave, which is off K Road and Symonds Street, in the Anglican section of Symonds Street Cemetery. William Hobson was the first governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi. He founded Auckland as New Zealand's capital in 1840. He died in 1842 after illnesses, at only aged 49.

[Video: Footage of the large memorial showing the names of the people reinterred there.]

Shale: Baron Charles de Thierry is one of 2000 people reinterred under the memorial that is located on the Hobson Walk, following the Grafton Gully motorway works of the 1960s. Baron Charles de Thierry arrived in New Zealand wanting to make New Zealand French, but the Treaty of Waitangi intervened.

[Video: Footage of the old pūriri and oak trees. This is followed by Shale walking up to the grave of his ancestors.]

Shale: Symonds Street Cemetery is also a park with a distinctive urban forest made up of 300-year-old pūriri, trees and 100-year-old oak trees. My own ancestors, William and Elizabeth Goldsworthy, arrived on the founding of Auckland in 1840. She died in 1855 and he in 1865.

[Video: Footage of a map showing the walking route through the cemetery. Numbers and letters show the order to follow and places of interest.]

Shale: The Hobson Walk starts at Hobson's grave off Karangahape Road and Symonds Street. It goes through the cemetery – the Anglican section, then the Wesleyan section, ending in St Martin's Lane, off Symonds Street.

[Instrumental music plays at the end of the video.]

[Auckland Council logo with text below that reads: For more information about the Hobson Walk and other walks and trails around historic Symonds Street cemetery, go to aucklandcouncil.govt.nz.]

[Video ends.]

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