Families rejecting traditional burials
Northampton Chron & Echo
Families in Northamptonshire are turning their backs on traditional funerals in favour of giving their deceased loved ones a greener send-off.
Instead of paying for horse-drawn hearses and engraved gravestones, families are choosing more environmentally-friendly plots as the final resting place for relatives.
Warwick Clarke, managing director of the Green Burial Company, in Olney, on the county border with Buckinghamshire, said the firm was carrying out 150 natural burials a year.
He said: “When we started this firm eight years ago, we had about 60 burials each year and since then it’s increased. The burial ground is effectively in the countryside and looks like a meadow with young trees planted on it.
“People see this as an alternative to the traditional town cemeteries because the graves can suffer from vandalism.”
Families can have their deceased relatives placed in a cardboard coffin within Olney Green Burial Ground, a 10-acre site north of the market town.
For about £545, the plot can be placed in a meadow or, for £995, clients have the option of planting a tree on top of the grave. Mr Clarke said that, in the long term, part of the area would become natural woodland.
Paul Hollowell, a senior partner at Hollowell and Sons funeral directors, in Abington, Northampton, said the firm has also experienced a rise in families requesting natural graves.
Mr Hollowell said: “Green burials aren’t the norm and are now becoming more widely accepted. One method of remembering loved ones which is becoming popular is putting a token amount of someone’s cremated remains in a clear glass ball paperweight.
“We only introduced it this year but we’ve already sold a dozen at £195 each. Another option is putting them in silver and gold jewellery.
“I think families are having more input into the service, whether in the crematorium or at the local church, so it is catered towards what they want.”
A spokesman for Northampton Borough Council said an area of land had been extended at Kingsthorpe Cemetery for extra burials.
He said: “Within that site, a plot has been identified for 300 green burials following demand and that area is expected to last about 10 years.”