Breathing life into Joburg’s dying Brixton cemetery

Brixton Cemetery is dying. 

Signs of its struggling vitals are strewn across the green expanse in the middle of Johannesburg. Litter fills the property’s edges, anything that can be lifted and sold has been stripped, and that which can’t has been vandalised. Drug users and homeless people take sanctuary in its secluded recesses, leaving behind human waste and paraphernalia. Their presence has bred a growing reputation for crime in the area.

But the decay hasn’t stolen Brixton Cemetery’s majesty. It is a beautiful, tranquil stretch of land, shaded throughout by old, drooping trees. The antiquated gravestones were crafted with an extravagance rarely seen today, moulded out of huge slabs of granite or marble. 

A rich history is buried beneath them. The segregated graves tell the city’s story: its beginnings, glory and inequities. This is the final home of many of the key protagonists who erected a metropolis out of a mine dump.

This is South African heritage; and heritage, most people are inclined to agree, is worth preserving. But how that should be done, or if that is even possible, are different questions altogether. With the scale of the task, the presence of volunteers is essential.

Friends of Johannesburg Cemeteries is one such collection of people. Their mandate is to protect, restore and educate. 

A group of them met the Mail & Guardian one Friday morning at the cemetery. This was a typical volunteer session for them consisting of general cleaning and scrubbing. (A lot of tasks, like the repair of heavy tombstones, require deliberate sessions with more manpower and equipment). 

With no taps in the cemetery — installing one would see it quickly plucked and sold for scrap — they must bring water to fill their buckets. Because the ornate marble is sensitive to harsh chemicals and abrasive cleaning tools, most of the scrubbing has to be done with a toothbrush. The volunteer’s sanguine postures belie what is undoubtedly a painfully tedious task. 

“The way it’s laid out is beautiful,” says Flo Bird, the founder of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF). “I mean Braamfontein [Cemetery] is laid out and squeezed like a Roman camp, no dignity about it. Here, you’ve got this elegant driveway going around and these were obviously the biggest and most expensive posh people here. And it does that right through the cemetery, sloping areas and curves.”

She’s pointing to an area known to visitors as Randlords’ Lane — the final resting place of some of Johannesburg’s best-known social moguls and mining and business magnates.

Segregation is a clear theme of the cemetery. South Africa’s racial past is an obvious factor, but outmoded religious and class sentiments are equally evident. Presbyterian, Catholic, and Anglican graves can all be picked out by their unique brand of Christian symbolism. Orthodox Greek and Lebanese residents have a reputation for lying under particularly luxurious slabs. The opposite is said of the city’s African black people, many of whom are buried under impoverished markings, if any. 

There are graves for indentured Chinese labourers for the mines; migrants from around the world who came to the gold fields, the memorials and graves for soldiers of the South African War, World Wars  I and II and the passive resistance fighters. 

The Jewish section is by far the best maintained in the cemetery, a result of it being closed and accessible by appointment only. In the far corner, at the opposite end to the entrance, a Hindu crematorium, its thin chimney rising to the heavens, is still in operation. 

Sporadic spots of grassy land, easily stumbled upon throughout the cemetery, are not empty ground, but graves housing people whose families could not, or did not want to, spend on a memorial. (Notorious serial murderer Daisy de Melker is one of them. She discarded two dead husbands into the same hole. One at least had the fortune of later being exhumed). Her son is also there.

There is no empty land; it’s packed to its edges.

Brixton is a dormant cemetery — meaning it is no longer taking in new inhabitants. 

Inactivity invariably breeds disuse, which is fertile ground for disrepair. Exacerbating the issue is that there is no single underlying cause — several factors are running the siege.

There is the innocence of decrepitude. Time haunts everyone and everything, even 200kg tombstones. When those tombstones are glued together with cement by corner-cutting artisans, instead of fused with steel pins, that inevitability is hastened. Weather, falling trees and erosion are all inescapable.

But it is mortals who have done the most damage. 

Opportunism is the most obvious motive. Joburg is well-known for its waste-picking culture: in the cemetery any signs of copper have been stripped, wrought-iron chains have been lifted and steel fences stolen. Even the little tin letters spelling out grave names — which would barely register on a recycler’s scale — have been peeled off. As economic hope has plummeted, desperation has exacerbated. 

Then there is the vandalism. Most of it wilful, indiscriminate destruction. Gravestones kicked over, adornments smashed and plots defiled with paint. 

If there is any rationality driving those actions it can only be speculated. 

Over the past few years, nearby Braamfontein Cemetery has frequently been in the news for the prolific defacement of its ash walls. The initial theory was that the perpetrators might be after the valuables interred within; at another point, it was suggested that the ash was being used as a nyaope ingredient. Both ideas have commonly since been dismissed after it was discovered that often the urns had been left unmolested.

Sometimes it can be even scarier when there is a reason. Bird remembers a disturbing discovery in Brixton: “In the Catholic section, there are beautiful, all lovely marble gravestones. Beautifully cut. And these devil worshippers suddenly went through and chopped off the heads of Mary and Jesus. So you’re left there with a headless Mary.”

Fortunately, such acts of religious hate are not common here. Antisemitic desecration noted in other cemeteries, for instance, has largely eluded it in recent memory. 

But where it is like so much other South African public land, it has become a haven for people who have been left destitute.

“There was a period pre-Covid where there was a lot of vagrancy,” says Nicola Noble, a volunteer tour guide who represents the cemeteries portfolio on the board of management for the JHF. 

“People actually living here. One guy had in a whole bathtub — as the grave sinks he was able to fit in the tub. Further down, a lot of the tombstones had fires made against them; that’s a 100-year marble, there’s no way you can fix or replace that. A lot of scorch marks and burn marks.”

Security presence at Brixton has been greatly increased since those heights of dilapidation. Typically, about eight guards patrol the grounds at any time — split into teams on either end, each accompanied by a dog. Today it is an impressive German Shepherd. And everyone agrees he has been the best means of preservation.

The cemetery is vast and poorly lit. A night patroller with a conspicuous torch is easily ambushed from the dark bushes. But there is no hiding from a canine snout. The watchdogs routinely sniff out danger and have likely saved their handlers’ lives multiple times. 

The men are affable, yet clearly cautious and even a little jittery. 

“There are people that are making violence here … so we make sure that those who are here are safe,” says one guard, who asked to be referred to only as Baloyi. “Sometimes they rob people inside here. So we make sure that we are visible and people can see us here. There are other people who are here who are smoking some drugs.”

Baloyi, who grew up in rural Limpopo — where one only visits the dead to pay respects — is disturbed by the irreverence afforded to the area. The solemnity of his post, he says, gives him pride in executing his duties effectively.

“In our own culture, you don’t see people inside the cemetery. You won’t find someone just walking inside the cemetery. I was so surprised that here in Joburg everyone is taking drugs inside the cemetery. Doing bad things. We always respect the cemetery.”

The introduction of increased security guards was initiated by Johannesburg City Parks and Zoos. The entity has naturally been the first to face questions when cemeteries make the news for wanton destruction. Although groups like the Friends of Cemeteries aren’t afraid to criticise the authority’s efforts when appropriate, there is also a general acceptance of the enormity of their task (and both sides are keen to talk up recent collaboration).

“We’ve committed to not only replacing and assisting in the replacing of the niches where you need cement and water to fix it,” says spokesperson Jenny Moodley. “But we’ve also pruned back the trees, removed overgrowth, we’ve put in lighting, we’ve deployed additional security, we’ve fixed some of the broken windows and some of the other basic infrastructure that required some level of maintenance … The big challenge for us is also limited resources. We don’t have resources to manage dormant spaces like we would some of our other flagship facilities.” 

There are at least 2  175 spaces it oversees in Johannesburg, many of which are sprawling. Of the 42 cemeteries, 38 have reached capacity for primary burials, which means they can only be used for a second burial in the same grave. As of a few years ago, families are no longer allowed to reserve a spot next to a loved one. The official recommendation is now simply to get cremated. 

Asked if requests have been put in to bolster the budget, Moodley’s response was pragmatic.

“We’ve approached the city. But the city is dealing with competing needs, particularly when it comes to basic services. What is more important, safeguarding cemeteries versus making sure there’s drinking water in our suburbs? 

“We are mindful that we’re not at the top of the pecking order … we of course think that it’s quite important. But budgets have been quite a concern, especially in the months after Covid. We’re finding that payment levels are not as high as the city would like to have it and that has a knock-on budget for security, maintenance and so on.”

Brixton is haunted by bureaucracy — that much is clear when the jurisdictions are spelled out in black and white. Parks and Zoos is responsible for maintaining the grounds. Its mandate, however, does not extend to the pavements that border it, meaning it can do little about vagrancy or litter that accumulates there. Its 37 rangers — already spread thinly across the city — also have to rely on the Johannesburg metro police to enforce certain by-laws. As for the gravestones themselves: that is the respective family’s responsibility. In older dormant cemeteries, where memories are fading, that is untenable; hence the need for volunteers.

Authorities would love to make their lives easier by fencing the area but any attempts have been met with the familiar ruthless uprooting of steel. At one point there was even an effort to grow a fence with thornbushes; people in the neighbourhood reportedly showed up the next day with bakkies and relocated the seedlings to their homes.

Regardless, not everyone agrees that sealing it off is the best option for the cemetery in the first place.

“It would be phenomenal to use it like they do in other places,” Noble says. “In other countries, cemeteries are like tourist attractions and used as green spaces. This is your city’s history. This is where it is, all of it.”

Bird adds: “And that’s actually something we are very keen to see done. More promotion of the people who are in here. You can’t shout that people shouldn’t be allowed to walk through. It’s part of their neighbourhood and maybe they’ll look after it better if they see it as that. It’s just not that easy to find solutions to keep people out.”

The logic is that if more people pour into the Joburg necropolis it will eliminate much of the opportunism that plagues its dark corners. 

To protect the sanctity of the dead, it must be made into a place for the living. 

There is precedent for that vision, particularly in Europe. Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is the obvious example, attracting more than 3.5  million visitors a year who come to see tenants such as Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust and Jim Morrison.

As we conclude our Friday morning tour, a volunteer is finishing up her toothbrush scrubbing on one headstone. What was once a nondescript grey mass has been transformed into a glittering golden mosaic. As long as there is that spirit, Brixton Cemetery will live a little longer still.