This book unravels the many different experiences, meanings and realities of natural burial. Twenty years after the first natural burial ground opened there is an opportunity to reflect on how a concept for a very different approach to caring for our dead has become a reality: new providers, new landscapes and a hybrid of new and traditional rituals. In this short time the natural burial movement has flourished. In the UK there are more than 200 sites, and the concept has travelled to North America, Holland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
This survey of natural burials draws on interviews with those involved in the natural burial process – including burial ground managers, celebrants, priests, bereaved family, funeral directors – providing a variety of viewpoints on the concept as a philosophy and landscape practice. Site surveys, design plans and case studies illustrate the challenges involved in creating a natural burial site, and a key longitudinal case study of a single site investigates the evolving nature of the practice.
Natural Burial is the first book on this subject to bring together all the groups and individuals involved in the practice, explaining the facts behind this type of burial and exploring a topic which is attracting significant media interest and an upsurge of sites internationally.