What Will the Neighbours Say? Reactions to Field and Garden Burial

Abstract

In modern Britain mourning has been largely a private affair. However, since the 1970s the proliferation of public spontaneous shrines and informal memorials challenge mourning’s conventional boundaries, making it far more visible in public space. This chapter looks at the taken-for-granted phenomenon of burying the dead in the public space of churchyard or cemetery. As the data presented shows, however, very occasionally these take place in a garden or on some other entirely private plot of land. It explores reasons why this might not be acceptable — to other family members, to neighbours, subsequent owners of the land, presenting examples of disposal which nonetheless seem to indicate a re-ordering of place, boundaries, public and private.