Are Some Graves Eternal?
Discussion
Recently I took my kids to Marcham, near Abingdon to visit my grand, and great grandparents' graves. All Saints Church has a quite a few very old graves around the building, some of which are so old you can't read the inscriptions on the headstones.
There is also no room for any more burials, so there is a separate burial 'garden' to the church which is also full. My grandparents are buried in for what is basically the overflow.
My kids asked how come the world isn't full of graves if everyone gets buried etc. We had a nice chat about it as we walked back from the church, but it got me thinking. Graves and the recycling of graves/tombs etc. Some religions bury their dead. At what point does each grave become a forgotten burial? When the lease runs out? When, after several generations, they simply no longer carry any more sentiment than family history? For example, my great aunts and uncles are also buried there but I never met them. I also never met my great grandparents. When the generation before me passes on, there's nobody in my generation who is interested in those all but forgotten generations.
If they are forgotten, when do their graves become 'available' as it were?
Looking on the flip-side, what about those 18th century tombs and graves immediately outside the church? Many of them are hardly visible; not exactly visited for any reason whatsoever, so why not recycle those?
There is also no room for any more burials, so there is a separate burial 'garden' to the church which is also full. My grandparents are buried in for what is basically the overflow.
My kids asked how come the world isn't full of graves if everyone gets buried etc. We had a nice chat about it as we walked back from the church, but it got me thinking. Graves and the recycling of graves/tombs etc. Some religions bury their dead. At what point does each grave become a forgotten burial? When the lease runs out? When, after several generations, they simply no longer carry any more sentiment than family history? For example, my great aunts and uncles are also buried there but I never met them. I also never met my great grandparents. When the generation before me passes on, there's nobody in my generation who is interested in those all but forgotten generations.
If they are forgotten, when do their graves become 'available' as it were?
Looking on the flip-side, what about those 18th century tombs and graves immediately outside the church? Many of them are hardly visible; not exactly visited for any reason whatsoever, so why not recycle those?
Edited by Glassman on Monday 20th September 16:18
I'm by no means an expert, but In central Cardiff there's a Church called St John's (or St. John the Baptist), there's been a church on that site since 1180, although it was rebuilt in the 15th Century.
The in the late 1800s a In-door market was built next to it (it's also still there), they built a walkway right through the grave yard called "Dead Man's Alley" over the decades they graves have been marked by brass numbers mounted to the pavement, or now with numbers engraved into the paving, still showing where the remains of people buried over 800 years ago lay.
In the village my Parents live outside of Cardiff one of their neighbours has a garden full of headstones, surrounded by plants, someone renovated a small Chapel into a house about 50 years ago, but the headstones (some of which are well over 100 years old) still remain.
Apparently with the new larger burial sites you usual see in Cities when you buy a plot, you're really buying the rights for exclusive use of it for a set period of time, 25-100 years, if you don't renew it, then they take away the headstone and plonk someone else in.
The in the late 1800s a In-door market was built next to it (it's also still there), they built a walkway right through the grave yard called "Dead Man's Alley" over the decades they graves have been marked by brass numbers mounted to the pavement, or now with numbers engraved into the paving, still showing where the remains of people buried over 800 years ago lay.
In the village my Parents live outside of Cardiff one of their neighbours has a garden full of headstones, surrounded by plants, someone renovated a small Chapel into a house about 50 years ago, but the headstones (some of which are well over 100 years old) still remain.
Apparently with the new larger burial sites you usual see in Cities when you buy a plot, you're really buying the rights for exclusive use of it for a set period of time, 25-100 years, if you don't renew it, then they take away the headstone and plonk someone else in.
Edited by P-Jay on Monday 20th September 14:18
In Paris they moved the bones of between 6 and 7 million people to the catacombs beneath Paris in 1786.
In London, graves can be reused after 75 years
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/0...
Plus not everyone is buried as it is crazy expensive these days and 77% of people were cremated in 2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...
In London, graves can be reused after 75 years
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/0...
Plus not everyone is buried as it is crazy expensive these days and 77% of people were cremated in 2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 20th September 14:42
The graveyards of many very old churches appear somewhat higher than the pathways and floor level of the church. This is because they keep digging holes in the ground and putting in a coffin, they backfill of course but over very long periods of time, old graves get reused multiple times and the ground level slowly rises.
There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
I walked around the Jewish cemetary at Lodz and there are sections that are now no longer being maintained, trees are being allowed to grow, topping headstones and disturbing the graves and everything is re-wilding. I seem to recall there's a certain time cut off there. The place had a very sombre beauty about it.
buggalugs said:
I walked around the Jewish cemetary at Lodz and there are sections that are now no longer being maintained, trees are being allowed to grow, topping headstones and disturbing the graves and everything is re-wilding. I seem to recall there's a certain time cut off there. The place had a very sombre beauty about it.
i oft wondered if the bit in schindler's list where roads in the camps were paved with headstones was an artistic invention or factualOne oddity among such matters is King Richard III who was dug up from under a car park in Leicester,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_rebur...
They did at least have the decency to rebury his remains at the cathedral.
Another is construction of the Crossrail project in London where many victims of the 1665 Great Plague had to be moved,
https://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/suspecte...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_rebur...
They did at least have the decency to rebury his remains at the cathedral.
Another is construction of the Crossrail project in London where many victims of the 1665 Great Plague had to be moved,
https://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/suspecte...
mikey_b said:
The graveyards of many very old churches appear somewhat higher than the pathways and floor level of the church. This is because they keep digging holes in the ground and putting in a coffin, they backfill of course but over very long periods of time, old graves get reused multiple times and the ground level slowly rises.
There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
The burials wont just be neatly laid out, there will be everywhere in your typical village churchyard. Which causes problems when the church wants to do some building work (such as a toilet block) and human remains turn up under paths ect. There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
Krupp88 said:
mikey_b said:
The graveyards of many very old churches appear somewhat higher than the pathways and floor level of the church. This is because they keep digging holes in the ground and putting in a coffin, they backfill of course but over very long periods of time, old graves get reused multiple times and the ground level slowly rises.
There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
The burials wont just be neatly laid out, there will be everywhere in your typical village churchyard. Which causes problems when the church wants to do some building work (such as a toilet block) and human remains turn up under paths ect. There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
Cremation was introduced as a way to limit the need for graveyards. Bryson's book that Mikey mentions includes the difficulty the authorities had in introducing this.
Cemetery rather than a graveyard but an interesting one in Newcastle used as a park
Ballast Hills Burial Ground
The burial ground, known locally as Plaguey Fields or Grannies Park, was the most important con-conformist graveyard in Newcastle in the early and mid-seventeenth century, when many Protestant, Quaker, Baptist and Methodist immigrants buried their dead here.
Use of the ground was heavy throughout the plague years and only fell out of use when the 1853-54 cholera epidemic closed all graveyards.
In 1930 the ground was laid out as a play area and the remaining tombstones, around 200, laid down as flagging for paths, with the exception of those former non-conformist ministers, which can be found upright in one corner of the site.
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/BeMh9efv.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/BeMh9efv" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/BeMh9efv.jpg)
Ballast Hills Burial Ground
The burial ground, known locally as Plaguey Fields or Grannies Park, was the most important con-conformist graveyard in Newcastle in the early and mid-seventeenth century, when many Protestant, Quaker, Baptist and Methodist immigrants buried their dead here.
Use of the ground was heavy throughout the plague years and only fell out of use when the 1853-54 cholera epidemic closed all graveyards.
In 1930 the ground was laid out as a play area and the remaining tombstones, around 200, laid down as flagging for paths, with the exception of those former non-conformist ministers, which can be found upright in one corner of the site.
Took my daughter to the village church close to my grandparents farm recently.
My grandad is in the overflow part, but we started looking around the church grounds, and found his fathers grave, then we found the grave of that one's father, and then that ones father as well, I was amazed how far back we could link them all, not fallen far from the tree it seems my ancestors.
Got me thinking if anyone 4 generations after us would be doing the same and wondering what we were like.
My grandad is in the overflow part, but we started looking around the church grounds, and found his fathers grave, then we found the grave of that one's father, and then that ones father as well, I was amazed how far back we could link them all, not fallen far from the tree it seems my ancestors.
Got me thinking if anyone 4 generations after us would be doing the same and wondering what we were like.
StevieBee said:
Krupp88 said:
mikey_b said:
The graveyards of many very old churches appear somewhat higher than the pathways and floor level of the church. This is because they keep digging holes in the ground and putting in a coffin, they backfill of course but over very long periods of time, old graves get reused multiple times and the ground level slowly rises.
There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
The burials wont just be neatly laid out, there will be everywhere in your typical village churchyard. Which causes problems when the church wants to do some building work (such as a toilet block) and human remains turn up under paths ect. There's a passage in Bill Bryson's book 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life' where he describes moving into an old rectory in Norfolk, overlooking the churchyard. He did some sums based on the known size of the village over the centuries, and calculated roughly how people would have died every year and been buried in the church. He worked out that a few feet from his new house were the remains of about 20,000 people, layered into the ground such that the church itself seemed to be sinking into the rising level of the surrounding graves.
Cremation was introduced as a way to limit the need for graveyards. Bryson's book that Mikey mentions includes the difficulty the authorities had in introducing this.
I have lost count of the number of remains found, one that sticks in the memory was the pink feet of a 3 weeks old burial being disturbed, they dug the trench further over to avoid a large tree.
I’ve dug up literally hundreds of people in my career. Some have been in the ground thousands of years some probably less than a hundred.
Burial is simply a process whereby decomposition can take place cleanly and out of sight. By and large this is all done quite quickly even the bones start to dissolve quite quickly in acid soils, especially soft and thinner bones in child burials.
I’ve seen lots of intercutting burials with up to four or five inhumations basically cut through each other often with the earlier remains neatly cut through.
Burial is simply a process whereby decomposition can take place cleanly and out of sight. By and large this is all done quite quickly even the bones start to dissolve quite quickly in acid soils, especially soft and thinner bones in child burials.
I’ve seen lots of intercutting burials with up to four or five inhumations basically cut through each other often with the earlier remains neatly cut through.
As an illustration of costs for a burial plot: My Nan died in 1996 and my Dad paid £84 for the plot. Thinking of his and my Mums mortality, he paid a further £180 for the 2 adjacent plots. My Aunt died about 4 years ago and my Cousins paid around £36,000 for a plot in Kemnal Park in South London.
vikingaero said:
As an illustration of costs for a burial plot: My Nan died in 1996 and my Dad paid £84 for the plot. Thinking of his and my Mums mortality, he paid a further £180 for the 2 adjacent plots. My Aunt died about 4 years ago and my Cousins paid around £36,000 for a plot in Kemnal Park in South London.
LordHaveMurci said:
vikingaero said:
As an illustration of costs for a burial plot: My Nan died in 1996 and my Dad paid £84 for the plot. Thinking of his and my Mums mortality, he paid a further £180 for the 2 adjacent plots. My Aunt died about 4 years ago and my Cousins paid around £36,000 for a plot in Kemnal Park in South London.
They were regular churchgoers and wanted ‘the best’ plots apparently.
It boggles my mind that anyone would anything beyond the absolute minimum on post life residences. One's descendants surely have a strong financial incentive to skimp as much as possible.
I intend to get someone to luzz my carcass out the back of a van somewhere on a Belgian motorway. If I'm rotten enough I should disintegrate on impact and the birds will get the scraps.
I intend to get someone to luzz my carcass out the back of a van somewhere on a Belgian motorway. If I'm rotten enough I should disintegrate on impact and the birds will get the scraps.
Not long ago, my mum's burial plot in the church graveyard where her parents and other ancestors are buried cost £1000 and the contract is for 100 years. There aren't many places left now, and I suspect it will be closed in around 10 years and another graveyard opened somewhere. I do wonder where all the remains are, as the church dates back to well before 1275 - although logically it wasn't as heavily populated back then as it has been since Victorian times. I would expect that disinterring and all that that involves is quite expensive, and buying a couple of farmer's fields where all you have to do is dig a hole would be quite a lot more cost-effective.
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