A cemetery is offering second-hand graves, with “refurbished” monuments including headstones, obelisks and crosses, to be used again.
Recycled burial plots, complete with the original memorials, still contain the remains of those who died at least 75 years ago – the names of the dead are simply scoured from the monuments to allow new inscriptions.
The City of London cemetery is selling 1,000 such plots advertised as “traditional-style graves” to be “adopted” by families willing to pay £3,000 to lease them for 50 years.
The 200-acre cemetery, built in 1853 by the Victorians in Manor Park, east London, is one of the largest in Europe. But, like cemeteries across the country, it is running out of burial space.
Manor Park is understood to be the first to consider selling memorials with old graves as part of the solution.
The City of London corporation says many graves were dug deep enough to allow for more coffins and re-using the memorials is good conservation.
Ian Hussein, the cemetery manager, said: “The issue of shortage of burial space has been around for a long time.
“The only viable way forward is to reuse the graves. We are reusing the monuments too. Many had only one or two in them so there’s room on top for more.
“We did not expect it to be that popular because it’s a complete change of our culture. But we were surprised by the uptake.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Mother Ecclesiastica // Oct 22, 2006 at 5:15 am
This is so disgustingly immoral, I haven’t words strong enough to describe my outrage!!
Where is that (…) woman, The Queen, when she is needed to defend her People and Their Faith???
What evill is being wrought here?
Where are the ‘Good Churchmen’?
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