The colonists' cemetery, just south of the village, holds around 100 graves and tells the early history of Rugby in compact form. The most striking marker is for the seven young men who died in the typhoid outbreak of 1881 — a disaster that broke the colony's momentum almost as soon as it had begun, and a reminder that the romanticism of the venture had no answer for the realities of waste sanitation on a sandstone plateau.
The cemetery is open all year. A short interpretive trail explains who is buried where. Combine with the walk down to the Gentleman's Swimming Hole.