Making room for the dead

Making room for the dead

The news that most British cemeteries are either full, or nearly full, shouldn't be a surprise. The population continues to grow, and so does the demand for burial space. Cemeteries can be fascinating places, with historically interesting headstones and thriving wildlife, but it makes no sense to expect to stake your claim to a burial plot and expect it to remain yours in perpetuity. Many graves are neglected, forgotten or ignored by the descendents of those who occupy them, while the newly dead must be buried wherever there's room.

Maybe it's time to coax the squeamish into considering burying people long enough for full decomposition, before exhuming the bones and storing them in an ossuary? Neatly stacked bones take up far less space than bodies.

Of course there's cremation, which is popular here and in Japan, but even with efficient new cremators, it's not an environmentally-friendly option. Other new methods of disposal include bio-cremation and freeze-drying, but they still use energy, which is also is increasingly short supply.

Dealing with the problem of burial space shortages means dealing with death and with the population problem; two subjects that most people would rather not know about. It's not going to be easy.

________

Here lies father and mother and sister and I,
   We all died within the space of one short year;
They all be buried at Wimble, except I,
   And I be buried here.

Headstone in a Staffordshire churchyard.

Photo of headstone fragments by the wall of St. Peter's Church, Elmsett, Suffolk, © M Nelson.
Photo of bones in an ossuary in Sedlec near Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic fromthe Czech Tourism website.