Market place / resting place: the Old Melbourne Cemetery uncovered

The Queen Victoria Market Precinct a place rich in meaning, history and culture, listed on the Victorian Heritage Register with dual historical significance for being the only surviving example of the great nineteenth century markets of Victoria and the site of Melbourne's first official cemetery.Over nine million people visit the market each year, the vast majority of whom have no idea that 7,000 of Melbourne's earliest pioneers remain beneath the asphalt. In failing to provide appropriate interpretive information to the public about the Old Melbourne Cemetery we are failing to properly conserve its heritage value and actively diminishing this aspect of the site’s significance.