General Chat

Tabitha, just to say that the council have absolutely no say in what happens in a churchyard - it comes under the jurisdiction of the church authorities. :-)


David, the only way to find out if there are others in the grave is to ask permission to have the grave 'probed' by a gravedigger. They are experts at doing that.

Beginning to realise that were the exact spot where my GM was interred was identified
it may well have another occupant. :-(

I had the same problem with old family plots in Dover. M in L swore it was on the high part but we couldn't find the family area.

I emailed the local council - just in case & they send me a very details map & offered to come with me to locate if I gave them at least a weeks notice.

Trouble is M in L is now 92 & cant walk that far - esp up hill neither can Auntie - I may contact them when we are on holiday - just to get a photo for them.

In short why not email or speak with the local council office who look after the church yard.

David, why not contact the church as they should have burial records and may be able to pin point the grave more accurately for you - with or without a headstone.

Generally, churchyards are maintained by volunteers, so it is possible that the church you mention is struggling for help in keeping the undergrowth down.


Anglican churchyards are covered by Ecclesiastical law and there are many guidelines to be followed.

Hope this helps.

Wife and I put her parents ashes in their back garden without thought for laws.
The property was still theirs, but was then sold.
Had it not been their garden no doubt it would be the garden of rest.
My parents are there and relatives, yet I don't know where there is. :-S

My mum died just before Christmas 2012 in Portugal, and her friends had her cremated, as we couldn't get out there until after Christmas.
We held a 'memorial' service at her home for her friends, then, afterwards, we (siblings & I) put some ashes in various parts of her garden - where she'd put her late husband's ashes, and where her beloved dogs were buried.

She was in the process of coming back to the UK, and actually wanted to be buried in a local 'Sustainability Centre' (woodland cemetery), so we brought the remainder of her ashes back, and buried them in a hole between the trees!!

..not sure how many laws we broke :-D :-D

I don't know if my wife and I committed an illegal act, but after OH's Father was cremated she put his ashes in the flower bed of his back garden.
Three years later when he Mother died and was cremated we put her ashes on top of her husbands. Their house was then sold with no mention of this in their garden.

Does anyone remember a thread some years ago - a lady had been estranged or whatever from her mother but finally found her burial place. She was distraught when she discovered it had been re-used.
No one seemed to get the 'only an empty shell/returned to dust' through to her.

As David has pointed out, churches and their attached graveyards have been sold fir redevelopment. There's usually a clause attached that either graves & headstones are left in situ or the remains have been reinterred before sale.

We had a long chat with a 'Duty Priest' who conducted cremation services on a rota. When part of the gardens had to be used as a road widening scheme, he had to oversee the removal of scattered ashes. In many instances it wasn't possible to identify who they once were & thus inform the relatives where the ashes had been deposited. Despite his faith, he found it rather depression.

Cemeteries may even be re-used, with buildings erected on top of them, bodies still there.

Think of the excavations in London which have found plague pits, or the bodies apparently buried in a burial ground near Bedlam.

There is a city near where I live where a school needs replacing .... it was built in 1949 and is in bad shape. The provincial government has just announced money for the new school, to be built beside the old one, and the minister announced that "the new school will also address the wrongs of the past".

What wrongs???

The current school was built on a cemetery that was declared full in the 1920s, and finally made available for development. Buried there are non-Caucasians ........... First Nations, Chinese, East Asians, etc

The new one will be on land that was not part of the burial grounds.


Anyway, if we are honest ................ what really is left by now??

Probably a lot of dust and a few bones.

Though it is the ignoring of the importance of burial grounds and cemeteries to many cultures that causes problems.

Did you know you can buy a church or chapels from the Church of England or the Church of Scotland. The purpose of the purchase being to convert into a house.
These churches and chapels invariably have a grave yard.

No idea, David. They may not be sure what's under the brambles now. Let's be honest; the grounds staff aren't paid enough to risk their necks falling into a tomb or 6ft deep cavity.

Shirley - some of the plots must have long leases. This particular council cemetery opened c1851 & there many headstones dating from then. May be they've been shortened in more recent years?

You only lease a grave for a period of years you don't buy the plot and its owned by the family forever

Info

The exclusive right of burial ( or grave deed) is sold for 75 or 99 years. For a cremated remains plot, the exclusive right of burial is sold for 75 or 99 years. These are known as 'purchased graves' and although you never actually own the ground you do own the exclusive rights to bury in your purchased plot

If they put planks or joists on the ground to take their weight DET they could tidy it up ?

One known cemetery has an early section surrounded by warning signs, presumably because the tombs/interment sites have subsided.

Although the rest of the cemetery has been cared for, that section is covered with brambles. Cemetery staff would be put at risk if they tried to deal with it. It's a pity its been abandoned as that's where my grt grt grandparents are buried..... not that they're likely to have had a marker. :-0

They have wee mechanical diggers do the job now Joy.

I would just pull a Grave digger they know everything :-D :-D

In Newcastle T & W where All Saints Cemetry is on Jesmond Road there was another Cemetry on the other side of the road bordered by Jesmond Road and Sandyford Road..
In the late sentries, early eighties all the graves in the latter were exhumed and reinterred in the larger All Saints Cemetry.
An unpleasant job but one that was necessary to widen Jesmond Road
(which becomes a bottle neck a few hundred yards on) nothing gained
but no doubt at great expense. :-0 :-| :-P

I think most council cemetery workers try their best to keep cemeteries looking tidy but as with everything these days, cuts to budgets mean that there is not the same amount of money there once was to pay for this.

When you "buy" a grave plot you do not buy the plot outright for ever. What you actually buy is the right to exclusive use of the plot for a certain number of years - usually between 25 and 100 years. At our local cemetery it is 25 years with the option to renew at the end of that time.

Kath. x

That's awful Maggie, so sad.
My paternal grand parents were interred in the same grave in Belfast
Ive no idea as to the condition
Employees of the council ought to keep them tidy if they're not visited often.

I have my grandfather's first wife's grave details. I have a map with the position and number. She died in 1924, aged 23.
I even know my granddad scrimped and saved to have a headstone, border and green glass chippings on her grave.

I went to the burial ground - the numbers were very clear.
I found where her grave should have been - only to find a man was buried there.
I searched around to find Violet's grave - all to no avail.

True, she was buried in 1924, but grandad had bought the plot.
I looked into the history of the burial ground and found, that in 1966, the decision was made that graves could be re-used after 30 years :-(

Grandad died at the youngish age of 59. Had he lived another 10 years, he would have seen the grave of his beloved first wife, the grave he had got into serious debt to buy for her, destroyed and re-used, unless, I expect, he could afford to buy it again :-(