Take a walk around the Nieu-Bethesda cemetery and see graves both ancient and contemporary.  With graves dating back hundreds of years, many of them unmarked save for their beautiful local stone; this is a peaceful and pretty place to spend quiet time. Graves date back to the late 1700s and the Anglo-Boer War. A number of old graves have tombstones made from local rock slabs. The oldest is dated 1786.

There is at least one grave of a British soldier who died during a skirmish in the Anglo-Boer War (a pair of local residents, of British descent, place fresh flowers on the soldier’s grave on the anniversary of his death) and several touchingly small children’s graves.

The cemetery is divided along the same socio-economic line that divides the families of the village: above the road that leads to the cemetery was known as the Onderdorp (downtown) where the poorer people lived; below that, in the Bodorp (uptown), lived the wealthier people – so it is in the graveyard. English speaking people were allocated space in the cemetery later.

There is an owl-shaped headstone to memorialise Helen Martins, the creator of the Owl House. She wasn’t actually buried here as her ashes were scattered in the Camel Yard at the Owl House after her cremation.