Not everyone wishes to be laid to rest in a municipal cemetery. While these places are purpose-built for people to be buried in them, mourners often find public graveyards remote and impersonal. They would like the opportunity to conduct a much more personal kind of burial, laying the deceased to rest in a place that reflects who they were in life.
If you want a more personal kind of burial, how about your own back garden? There are actually very few restrictions that would prevent you from doing that, should you wish to. At first glance that may seem odd, but the practice actually has plenty of historical precedents: many stately homes had a family mausoleum built within the grounds of the estate, while even among the middle-classes, it was very common for Quakers to be buried in private gardens from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
Indeed, the same government regulations apply to burial on any kind of private land, so that – provided it won’t cause a public health hazard – you can actually be buried almost anywhere as long as you have the landowner’s permission. Many types of location would make for a more personal alternative to a public graveyard: a privately-owned woodland, for example, or an attractive meadow. But for those who don’t have the luxury of these options, the only practical option along these lines is to be laid to rest in their own garden.
Houses prices
Funeraldirectors.co.uk already offers advice about the potential difficulties you may encounter when trying to conduct a burial on private land. There are technical restrictions, but they are relatively straightforward, and accommodating. For instance: burials are not
permitted within 100m of a borehole or well spring, or within 10m of a drain, ditch or watercourse, or in waterlogged or poorly drained ground; a minimum of 1m of soil must be left on top of the coffin lid or over the body.
The advantages of being laid to rest in a back garden are clear. It will create a much more personal kind of memorial to someone’s life. The deceased will remain in close proximity to the family home, and his or her loved ones.
Although this probably won’t be someone’s primary motivation for being laid to rest in a back garden, you can also make a significant cost saving, given that permanent burial plots at most municipal cemeteries now cost thousands of pounds.
However, there are a few drawbacks too. The most significant drawback to being buried in a back garden is that the value of the property is likely to be adversely affected. When the burial takes place, it has to be registered with the local Coroner or Registrar, as well as marked on the plans of the property held by the Land Registry Office, meaning any potential buyer will know that someone is buried there.
While this may not concern some buyers, many others could well be put off by having a grave in the garden. Even if potential buyers are not particularly bothered about the presence of a grave, they will not see it as anything positive. In order to remove the grave, either you or a future owner of the property would need permission from the Home Office to conduct an exhumation, which can be tricky to obtain.
If the thought of someone else potentially disturbing a loved one who you’ve had laid to rest in a garden is troubling, then you can have a restrictive covenant applied to the property deeds which would make it illegal for someone to remove the grave, but this can obviously lower the property’s value even more.
So, in conclusion, garden burial can be one of the best ways to commemorate someone, provided that you aren’t concerned by its possible impacts on the value of your property. Above all, make sure the decision is made with careful thought and consultation – it is very hard to reverse.
