Burial mounds make a comeback in 21st-century Britain
I really like (although I hope it’s a fair way off yet!!!) the idea of this as a final resting place. This story tells us:
In a little copse of oak, hazel and willow trees, on the edge of a ploughed field in Cambridgeshire, a door is opening into a new way of death for 21st-century Britain: a brand new stone-and-earth round barrow, a burial mound of a type perfected more than 5,000 years ago.
Beyond the low, narrow door, the stone walls curving up to a corbelled roof are lined with hundreds of niches, waiting for the living to pay up to £4,800 to lease a space for the cremated remains of loved ones to rest for 99 years – and, its creators hope, for centuries longer than that.
Before the official launch of the Sacred Stones burial mound, the first booking for a niche came from a man on his mobile phone, standing in a car park outside the hospital where his father was gravely ill.
The early visitors have included potential clients but also landowners curious about the investment potential, a vicar, a bank manager who had already agreed the loan but was fascinated by the project, and several local authority planners.
Some who stepped into the cool darkness – there is no electricity, and the space is lit with candles when visitors are expected – away from the sound of birdsong and the traffic on the busy road a few fields away have burst into tears, some laughed out loud, and many just sat down on the stone bench and remained for some time in silence.
It was the blue nylon carpet in an urban crematorium that convinced Toby Angel there had to be a better way of doing death.