IT IS the resting place thousands of miles from home where scores of Titanic victims are buried.

And now Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada, is set to be given a major makeover.

The improvement work will see headstones being cleaned, new paths being laid and the inscriptions will be whitened.

The Halifax regional authority has put out tender for the work, which is worth $27,000.

The cemetery has 121 graves of those on the stricken liner when she sank in 1912 and claimed the lives of 1,500 people onboard.

Lorraine McCullough from the Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery group, which hold several Titanic-themed walks throughout the year, said: “We are glad that it is being well looked after and that improvements will happen there. It is a major part of social history.

“It would be nice to have that work carried out here, but it does cost a great deal of money and the council are very good at working with us to look at areas to improve.”

A spokesman from the Halifax regional authority added: “Many Halifax residents have strong ancestral ties to the UK, and those ties are strengthened even more by knowing we have this perpetual connection to Southampton through such a tragic event.”

He added: “There is a sense of pride knowing we are home to an eternal resting spot for so many people with ties to Southampton.”

Also welcoming the news is the Titanic Society’s honorary secretary, Rudi Newman.

He said: “The improvements sound absolutely fantastic. The people who were onboard the Titanic included many from Southampton, and their stories should be remembered so the restoration of the cemetery is something to be lauded.”

The victims buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery include the ship’s restaurant manager Gaspare Antonino Pietro (Luigi) Gatti, first violinist John Law Hume and restaurant barman Ernest Price.

Most notably the cemetery has the grave of the ‘unknown child’ – the Titanic’s youngest recovered victim, a two-year-old boy who was later identified as Sidney-Leslie Goodwin.