In 1879, following a conference of city councils in inner-Melbourne, the Frankston area was chosen as the preferred site to replace the Melbourne General Cemetery. The roughly 3000 acre Crown land site was bordered to the north by Charles Wedge's Banyan sheep station (over what are now the City of Frankston suburbs of Carrum Downs and Seaford), to the south by Frank Liardet's Ballam Park estate (in what is now the Frankston locality of Karingal), and is now the suburb of Frankston North. Its south-west corner is described as being "about a mile [1.6 km] north of the village of Frankston, and the same distance east of the beach".