Welcome

Vine Lake Cemetery, located at 625 Main Street, is one of that last surviving remnants from Medfield’s beginnings and one of the oldest cemeteries in the Commonwealth. As an active, thirty-two-acre public cemetery and a site on the National Register of Historic Places, Vine Lake Cemetery has grown and evolved over the centuries and remains Medfield’s only public cemetery.

The Old Section provides a seamless exposure to three major gravescape categories in American history: Burying Grounds, the Rural Movement, and the more contemporary Landscape Lawn. The entire cemetery artfully combines important social, historical, architectural, natural, and archeological environments.

Technology Advances and Awards

Vine Lake Cemetery is one of more than a hundred cemeteries in the United States using a new mobile application. This mobile application maps each gravesite on satellite maps, and offers walking tours of landmarks throughout the cemetery. These tours help visitors recognize veterans interred in major American wars, celebrate a little-known Daughter of American Liberty buried here, note famous and noteworthy early Medfield citizens interred here, and appreciate the uses of words on memorials to reflect attitudes towards death. Visitors using the free mobile app can also view the memories, stories, photos and videos shared by friends and family.

During the years 2009-2021, Vine Lake Preservation Trust initiated and completed major improvements in preservation and enhancement in the Old Section. The highly coveted Oakley Award was awarded to the Trust by the Association of Gravestone Studies as recognition in furthering the study, preservation, and celebration of gravestones.

The Cemetery Today

Today the Town of Medfield continues to preserve Vine Lake Cemetery by inspiring people to care for, enjoy, and explore its culture. Its goal is to promote the appreciation of the cemetery’s historic and natural resources, to protect this cemetery and to share it with future generations.

Vine Lake Cemetery is a popular repository of family history while telling a compelling story about evolving attitudes towards death, burial, and public landscapes. In addition to being a tranquil and dignified public open space, it serves today as an imaginative outdoor museum.

Photographs on this site courtesy of: John Borell, Victor Cevoli, Edmund Prescottano and Vine Lake Preservation Trust. Copy on this site was compiled by Rob Gregg, former president of Vine Lake Preservation Trust.