Cemetery of the Year Award?
Well why not. Not a topic anyone likes to talk about, dying, but let’s face it, we all do it.
As it happens, Oystermouth Cemetery has made the final list for the 2007 Cemetery of the Year award. So what makes this one so special?
Probably not the fact that hoards of people have been buried there since 1883 - I expect a lot of cemeteries can lay claim to having hoards of people buried in them since farther back than that.
Perhaps it’s the location, overlooking beautiful Swansea Bay. But probably it’s the lovely woodland setting that is seeing more and more people opting to bury their loved ones using the ‘green method’ of burial.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t heard of this so went digging to see what I could find out about green burials. Well, much to my surprise, I not only received an education in new methods of thinking about burial, I found about 97 pages of results on Google for Oystermouth Cemetery!
Be that as it may and back to the point at hand, this is very interesting stuff to those of us who are into environmental issues and preservation.
According to the City and County of Swansea website, a Green Burial does not allow for grave markers, fencing or, really, anything else. They even discourage the placing of flowers on grave sites. The idea being to leave everything as natural as possible and allow nature to take its course.
They encourage the use of coffins and shrouds that are made of natural fabrics or substances like wood and the area is pretty much left to its own care.
Well, as morbid as this subject may sound, I applaud the Oystermouth Cemetery for their forward thinking and environmental efforts. Personally, I think it’s a great idea and I hope they win the award.
As Awards administrator Maria Jose Ovalle said: “The awards aim to give our burial grounds the recognition they deserve, through setting standards for excellence and rewarding those that make a valuable and recognisable contribution.”
City and County of Swansea Story
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Oystermouth Cemetery in Swansea has been named Runner Up in Category C: Cemeteries above 12 acres, and Gwent Crematorium in Torfaen has been given an Honourable Mention in Cat. E: Crematoria Only.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
This is brilliant! I’m really keen on people spending more thought on how they are buried and I think your article shows supply is at last catching up with demand. For some people it is possible to use their own land and we’ve done a piece on the practicalities here at:
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/conservation/green-burial-can-i-be-buried-in-my-woodland/