With no loved ones to bury them, the deceased rest in this cemetery run by volunteers.

The burial is over in a matter of minutes.

Four funeral staff members standing around the grave is the minimum number of people required.

If there had been less, the coffin would not have been able to be lowered gently into the ground.

They solemnly say the Lord's Prayer, but no one knows if the deceased was religious, let alone Christian.

Most of these burials are not attended by family or friends, so the state trustees take care of all the arrangements.

If someone dies in Victoria and no next of kin can be found, or no one is willing to pay for the burial, the State Trustees take responsibility.

Since 2007, Old Ballan Cemetery is one of several places in Victoria that state trustees use to house people who have nowhere else to go.

The cemetery sits on windswept plains just over an hour's drive west of Melbourne and is virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding pastures.

A scattering of crumbling, tumbled headstones is the only indication that hundreds of people were buried in Old Ballan in the early years of European settlement.

By 1875, the so-called New Cemetery had opened closer to Ballan, and the old cemetery sat idle until it was reopened for burials of state trustees.

Ballan Cemetery Trust Secretary Marilyn Meadows says state trustees needed to find an accessible cemetery with the space they needed because cremation was not an option, in case a relative showed up later and wanted to exhume the body and move it to another cemetery.

Although exhumation of remains is rare, people often contact Ms. Meadows looking for someone buried in Old Ballan.

"It's amazing how often people distance themselves from others," she says.

"All of a sudden they realize that this person who was a member of their family is no longer with them .... They make inquiries and find out that he is in Ballan, and the next moment we get a phone call, and this happens very regularly."

A corral with white crosses

Each grave is marked with a simple white cross made from a plastic agricultural fence post.

Allan Barr says he developed this method, which is more affordable and durable than wooden crosses, during his 10 years in charge of cemetery maintenance and management.

The names of the dead are written in permanent marker, but after a few years they disappear, scorched by light and weather.

The cemetery is run by volunteers, so respecting the dead and balancing the small budget is a constant concern.

But each of the paupers' burials, as Mr. Barr calls them, passes with respect and dignity, he says.

"People live on Earth for a certain amount of time, and the least you can do for them is give them a send-off," he says.

"Because if the people who knew them and loved them or supposedly loved them didn't do much for them, we felt we had to do something. That's why we did and continue to do it."

As you walk through the rows of crosses, you'll see mostly male names - the state trustees bury far more men than women.

Tombstones are occasionally found.

One tombstone reads "Strong in his beliefs as well as his actions," another reads "unbending spirit," and another reads "atheist friends on Twitter."

Ms. Meadows said that sometimes families learn that their relative is buried in Ballan and order a stone or plaque to replace a simple cross.

"Give them a place to be."

State Trustees arranges about 200 burials and cremations each year.

A spokesperson says they only cremate if they know it is in accordance with the deceased's wishes.

Ms. Meadows believes that the average State Trustee plot in the cemetery buries over 100 people per year.

And the ever-growing mass of white crosses poses a new problem for the Ballan Cemetery Trust.

According to the local historical society, several hundred people are believed to have been buried in the Old Cemetery prior to 1875, but records have been lost and the location of most of these graves is unknown.

Fearing that the new graves might open up the old ones, Ms. Meadows obtained a small grant to conduct GPR work to locate the original graves.

She hopes to get other grants to digitize cemetery records, buy a new mower and widen gravel paths on the cemetery grounds - so limited is the cemetery trust's budget.

Despite her zeal, Ms. Meadows hopes her tenure will be temporary and she can find a new volunteer to replace her.

She is older than many of the people buried in the cemetery, she said.

"You might say it's a thankless job, but it's not," says Mr. Barr, who is approaching his 80th birthday and has stepped aside due to ill health.

Caring for the graves of the dead, whom no one claimed, makes you think about what's important in life, he says, recalling the case of a family that was reunited too late.

"We buried the guy, no one was there and then I got a call from a woman in Perth who thought it might have been her son," he says.

According to Mr. Barr, the mother and son hadn't spoken in 40 years after the argument.

Eventually the mother and her other sons came to Ballan, Mr. Barr showed them the grave, and they replaced the simple cross with a headstone.

"There were several stories like that, and it was good that we were able to help in the end," Mr. Barr says.

According to him, these are people who, for whatever reason, have found themselves in the public spotlight.

"You give them a place to be."