Woodland Burial

My mother died in 2000, and was buried at one of England’s increasingly popular woodland burial sites. Natural burial is an ecologically friendly interment option in which the body is wrapped in a simple cloth shroud or carboard coffin and placed, untreated, into bare earth. There are no preservatives, no metal detritus, no high temperatures to fuel.

At the site my mother chose, graves are marked with young memorial trees. As the trees mature, the site will become a patch of woodland, a kinder, softer memorial than a cross of stone. The religious side of the process is optional; no denomination or belief is required on the part of the deceased or the bereaved.

Hinton Park woodland burial site

I’m taking my father to his last rest at the Woodland burial site today, to add his ashes to my mother’s grave. It’s been a while since his death, but today would have been his 65th birthday, and it seems fitting somehow. It is a pretty, peaceful site, with no morbidity or dogma attached to it, and as the years pass, it will be beautiful.

Just something to bear in mind.