The Centre for Natural Burial

By KIM BRISCOE, Evening News 24

Many people choose to devote their spare time to knitting jumpers, scarves or baby clothes for family and friends, but Fiona Dowson has put her spinning and weaving skills to a more melancholic end.

A growing market for eco-funerals has led the 42-year-old to set up a business creating green burial gowns and shrouds so that people’s loved ones can be laid to rest in an environmentally-friendly way.

Ms Dowson, of Silver Road, Norwich, first took up spinning wool and using it for knitting as a hobby a few years ago. But she soon turned her attentions to creating the more unique items.

“People sometimes ask why I don’t just make jumpers, but I love being able to make something really special and I can’t possibly compete with Marks & Spencer,” she said.

“People are getting more environmentally aware and are starting to feel that how you are buried is just as important as how you live.

“Many natural and woodland burials have very strict guidelines on what can be buried - you are not allowed to use toxic paint on coffins, for instance - and the great advantage to wool is that it is bio-degradable.”

Ms Dowson said one of the reasons she enjoys spinning wool, apart from it being relaxing, is that farmers are finding there is no real market for fleece and so she supports the trade by buying it from Norfolk producers.

She said: “I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve been able to buy fleece from Wayland Prison, where they run a flock of Norfolk Horn Sheep. The Norfolks are part of our heritage - the sheep that shaped the Norfolk wool boom. Now there are only about 2,000 left.

“I use the fleece to make gowns and shrouds for woodland burials. I started spinning as a hobby and, somehow, I’ve ended up living in a house full of fleece and yarn.”

Ms Dowson said she came up with the idea for the gowns, while working as a nurse for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

She said: “People are either very enthusiastic about it or quite taken aback. In Tudor times people were buried in woollen shrouds so I’m really reclaiming a very old idea.”

The gowns are sold from her home and often used in burials at Colney Woodland Burial Park.

• More information about the burial gowns is available by calling 01603 404381 or by emailing greenburialgowns@phonecoop.coop
• Are you doing your bit to be green? Contact reporter Kim Briscoe on 01603 772419 or email kim.briscoe@archant.co.uk