The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum are pleased to announce that the Cave Hill Cemetery has been awarded a Level II Accreditation.
Cave Hill Cemetery is classified as a Historic, Victorian Era, Rural Garden Cemetery. It was chartered in 1848 by the State of Kentucky. There are 135,000 people interred and the cemetery is active, still burying around 600 people per year. The monuments and sculptures are a national treasure and represent a vast array of styles and stone types in the Victorian Extravagance memorial design motif. The Rural Garden Cemetery movement started in the mid-1800’s with Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, being the first in 1835. These cemeteries were the country’s first arboretums and took cemeteries from the drab and depressing entities to beautiful garden spaces that were created for the living more so than the deceased. Cave Hill comprises nearly 300 acres of rolling hills, a cave and 64 sinkhole basins. Five springs feed a chain of lakes supporting hundreds of waterfowl. A wide variety of cultivated and unusual trees and shrubs have been collected for 166 years and dot the landscape. They are meticulously maintained by cemetery staff.
