Contextual information: cemeteries in England

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Aren’t cemeteries and churchyards the same thing?
• How many cemeteries are there?
• Who owns cemeteries?
• What is green burial?
• Aren’t there a lot of closed cemeteries?
• How do we protect important cemeteries?
• How many people are buried, and how many cremated?
• How much does it cost to be buried?
• Isn’t it illegal to disturb human remains?
• Is England running out of burial space?
• What can we do about running out of burial space?
• What is the government doing about reuse of graves?
• What would happen with old monuments if graves are reused?

Aren't cemeteries and churchyards the same thing?

Cemeteries can and should be distinguished from churchyards. Churchyards, traditionally, are places of burial connected to churches either physically or through their ownership by the Church of England. Their use has been recorded since the eighth century. Churchyards are small in extent. Although status could be attached to the location of burial within a churchyard, for the most part its internal landscape lacks intentional design. By contrast, cemeteries – large tracts of land located on the outskirts of settlement, initially – came into common use from the 1820s. Cemeteries are almost always owned by statutory authorities. Church law applies to churchyards, and in part to the consecrated sections of cemeteries. Cemeteries are not always either partly or wholly consecrated.

How many cemeteries are there?

District, town and parish councils and London boroughs probably own the majority of cemeteries. It is at present difficult to be exact since the number of cemeteries in operation is not known. A reasonable figure may be in excess of 10,000. A typical cemetery might be around 5-10 acres in extent, and have been opened between 1850 and 1880. In 2006, the Department for Constitutional Affairs completed a survey of burial grounds, and so better data may soon be available.

Who owns cemeteries?

There is no statutory duty to provide burial space. As a consequence, provision tends to be ad hoc and is largely uncoordinated at any level – parish, district, regional or national. In addition to municipal cemeteries and churchyards, burial space is also provided by other religious denominations. In the nineteenth century, protestant Nonconformists – Quakers, Baptists, Methodists – often used burial space close to their places of worship. Few are still in use. However, many Roman Catholic burial grounds are still in use and towards the end of the twentieth century, Muslim communities were also being served with burial space provided by charitable trusts and private sector operators. The Jewish community also has a tradition of providing burial space for its own exclusive use, either by arrangement with a local authority to use part of an existing cemetery; or through direct ownership and management of a site.

What is green burial?

There is a slowly increasing private sector involvement in cemeteries, most markedly through the ‘Green burial’ movement. ‘Green burial’ has hitherto lacked exact definition, but in popular understanding tends to connote land in which burial takes place and trees are planted on or close to the grave. A number of private sector individuals and businesses now provide ‘green’ burial space; ‘green’ commemorative options are also available in many local authority cemeteries; and some charitable trusts have been established, to operate woodland cemeteries. It should be noted that new private sector cemetery activity is largely unregulated.

Aren’t there a lot of closed cemeteries?

Most cemeteries are still in use. Based on data collected in 2000 on 1416 cemeteries in England, 80 per cent were open (with twenty or more new graves available for burial) and a further 11 per cent were open but limited (with fewer than twenty new graves available). It should be noted that up to sixty per cent of burials are ‘reopens’, that is, interment in existing family graves. Seventy-five per cent of cemeteries that were established in the 1851-1914 period are still open. The majority of England’s historically and ecologically important cemetery landscapes are located within working cemeteries.

How do we protect important cemeteries?

There is no specific legislation to protect cemetery landscapes that are deemed to have historic value. Planning regulations relating to listing are not readily applicable to cemeteries, where the landscape comprises a mixture of natural and built features. Many individual memorials are listed, but few cemeteries are listed in their entirety. The English Heritage ‘Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England’ also covers cemeteries; recent work has substantially increased the number listed.

How many people are buried, and how many cremated?

In 2003, there were 612,000 deaths in the UK. In England, in the vast majority of cases, deaths are followed by cremation: the current cremation rate is around 72 per cent. However, in a significant and growing number of cases, cremations are themselves followed by the formal burial of cremated remains at cemeteries and crematoria. In addition, it should be noted that certain religious groups do not favour cremation, including Muslim and Jewish people.

How much does it cost to be buried?

Fees and burial charges vary substantially. Research completed on behalf of the Confederation of Burial Authorities in 2000/2001 found a range from £6 to £4000 for burial rights in a double grave. No research has been completed on the way in which burial authorities arrive at the fees they charge, and any conclusions on the issue have to be drawn by inference and anecdote.

In England, people do not ‘buy’ graves. Two options are available. In the case of an ‘unpurchased’ or ‘public’ grave, interment takes place in a grave owned by the local authority. A grave may contain one or coffins of unrelated individuals, since the local authority decides how the plot is to be used. A second option is the purchase of a burial right, for a particular grave. These graves are called ‘private’ or ‘purchased’ graves. The owner of the burial right retains the right to decide who is buried in a given plot.

The duration of burial rights is defined by burial authorities themselves. When cemeteries were first established, burial was ‘in perpetuity’, ie forever. More recent legislation has defined ‘perpetuity’ as one hundred years. Most burial authorities sell rights that last perhaps fifty years. Both public and private graves are subject to legislation on the disturbance of human remains (below).

The grave can be dug to provide space for a flexible number, depending on soil conditions. For example, if the grave is dug for four interments, two coffins would be placed side by side, one pair on top of another. Legislation specifies the amount of space to be left between each coffin, and the depth soil between the final coffin and the surface.

Isn’t it illegal to disturb human remains?

Once interred, human remains cannot be disturbed without a special licence. For well over a century, application had to be made to the Home Office. In 2006, responsibility was transferred – along with other burial legislative matters – to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. There has, however, been no change to the requirement to apply for a licence in cases where remains are disturbed, even if that disturbance is accidental. Licenses have never been made available for the purpose of reusing a site for burial, although there are many instances of licenses being issued for the removal of bodies from churchyards to facilitate building, road-widening and other developments.

Is England running out of burial space?

There is growing evidence to suggest that England is facing a shortage of burial space. This situation reflects the inability to reuse burial space, as happens in most Continental countries. A detailed burial survey was completed for the capital by the London Planning Advisory Committee. The report, issued in 1997, found that there was, in Inner London, only nine years supply of non-denominational burial space available. There was little local or out-of-borough space available for the residents of the City of London, Hackney, Islington, Lewisham, Kensington & Chelsea or Tower Hamlets. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the problem is not restricted to large metropolitan areas. Other burial authorities – some in rural locations – also report problems for example with financing the purchase of new land for burial, and securing appropriate land at a reasonable distance from the community to be served. Without further research, the scale of the problem is difficult to gauge. However, again, the 2006 Department for Constitutional Affairs survey should provide valuable data.

What can we do about running out of burial space?

Difficulties with burial authorities running out of space for interment have led to discussion of appropriate strategies. Some options that have been discussed and rejected include:

• above-ground burial in mausolea: popular on the Continent, but only sustainable if niches are reused periodically, otherwise the space problem has simply been located above ground;
• more intensive use of existing space: many local authorities are already using space between graves, alongside paths and roads and even mounding additional earth on top of existing burials in order to create new graves;
• promote cremation: the UK already has one of the highest cremation rates in the world, following an aggressive, century-long, propaganda campaign by cremation organisations. This rate is unlikely to increase unless cremation was made compulsory, which is not an acceptable option.

One option that has had more widespread acceptance is the reuse of graves. Discussion of reuse options began in 1994, following a paper on the issue addressed to the conference of the (then) Institute of Burial and Cremation Administration by Ian Hussein, who was at that time the cemetery superintendent at the London Borough of Newham. Discussion of reuse focussed on the option of the ‘lift and deepen’ method. Under this method, graves are excavated to their deepest depth, with all remains – including bodes and any coffin furniture – placed in a casket and re-interred at the bottom of the grave. In 1994, over seventy burial authorities together funded research completed by Douglas Davies and Alistair Shaw on public response to the reuse of grave. The research team interviewed 1603 members of the public, and found that the majority of respondents would not object to this system if it was well-regulated, and if disturbance took place only after one hundred years.

In 2000-2001 the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, under the aegis of chairman Andrew Bennett, completed an inquiry into cemeteries. The Committee’s report was wide-ranging, and made a large number of recommendations. With regard to reuse, the Committee concluded:

‘If the public are to continue to have access to affordable, accessible burial in cemeteries fit for the needs of the bereaved, there appears to be no alternative to grave reuse’.

At that time, burial matters were still administered by officials within the Home Office. Following the recommendations of the Committee Report, a Burial and Cemeteries Advisory Group (BCAG) was established in December 2001. BCAG has representatives from burial authorities, cemetery and crematorium management, funeral director organisations, bereavement groups, heritage organisations and religious denominations. The Group meets quarterly.

What is the government doing about reuse of graves?

In 2004, the Home Office issued a consultation document on possible changes to burial law. The public was invited to respond to suggested changes in Burial Law and Policy in the 21 st Century: The Need for a Sensitive and Sustainable Approach. The changes introduced the possible reuse of graves. It should be noted that in June 2005, the Home Office Coroners Unit, which had responsibility for burial matters was transferred to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. Ms Harriet Harman, the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs stated in November 2005 the intention to public a summary of responses to the consultation exercise, and indicated the intention to ‘consider sympathetically the case for enabling the re-use of old burial grounds, seeking a balance between the interests of relatives and descendents and the wider needs of the local community.’ On 27 th February 2007, Ms Harman – in responding to a Commons question – stated that the DCA was moving forward ‘innovatively’ on the reuse of old burial grounds, and made reference to new legislation being framed for London.

This comment made reference to the London Local Authorities Bill, which conferred – in clause 114 – the right to reuse graves in London boroughs. In London, local authorities have powers to reclaim a grave that has not been used for at least seventy five years, and use any space in the grave in which no interment has taken place. It is likely that the Bill will pass through the required stages by the summer of 2007.

What would happen with old monuments if graves are reused?

There has been some discussion of what should happen to memorials in a reuse scenario. At the City of London Cemetery, a pilot project - based on reclaimed grave spaces - has tested processes and methods for the reuse of monuments. However, it is likely that in many cemeteries, it will be possible that reuse could be targeted at areas where some clearance has already taken place.

The clearance of all grave furniture was a popular and common maintenance option for cemetery managers in the period after the First World War. The process was gradual, and reflected a modernist rejection of Victorian aesthetics and an embracing of new lawn cemetery design. As a first measure, local authorities would usually flatten body mounds, which were raised earth platforms – around 60 cm high - marking the grave. Steps would then be taken to bury kerbsets. None of these procedures entailed disturbance of remains. Clearance procedures accelerated in the post-World War II period, and included the removal of entire monuments. In 1977, a clarified process for clearance was provided in the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order. An Audit Commission Report of 1988 encouraged local authorities to undertake clearance programmes as a way of easing the burden of grounds maintenance.