Humanist Funeral & Woodland Burial

[AnyMouse]

Hi

My MIL is terminally ill and has requested a Humanist funeral followed by a Woodland burial.

I'm assuming the funeral is relatively easy to arrange by way of getting in touch with a Humanist celebrant, but does anyone have any information on woodland burials?

Is it even possible?

My poor FIL has so much on his plate at the moment, that I said I would look into it for him and thought I'd start with the mine of useful information that I always find MN to be.

Thank you for any help you can give us.

My grandparents both had woodland burials. Hang on a sec

Where are you located? I'm planning a Humanist funeral and woodland burial myself.

Not soon, though, I hope.

www.naturaldeath.org.uk/index.php?page=find-a-natural-burial-site

Have pm ed you

Thank you for your prompt replies!

I will take a look at your suggestions.

They live in London - hope you're not my MIL OldLadyKnowsNothing!

Nowhere near London. :)

Most funeral directors seem to be able to arrange a woodland burial (my mum wants one, so I did look up about it jic), and the humanist association can point you in the direction of celebrants. My dads cousin had a humanist funeral, and met with the celebrant before he died so she knew him. It was a really beautiful ceremony

Thanks CMOTdibbler - I'm glad it was a beautiful ceremony - I've been to a Humanist wedding before, but believing in God and Heaven etc, I'm not sure what I thought about humanist funerals (probably hadn't even considered them), but to be honest if it what she wants, then that's obviously fine by us, and it's good to know that it will feel like a proper funeral IYSWIM?

What was really nice was it was all about his life and him - the celebrant had spent a lot of time learning about him, so it was v personal. It wasn't a traditional funeral in many ways (for a start it was in the garden as he was being buried there), but my elderly parents really liked it

Sorry to hear about your mil.

We've just organised one for my mum who requested a natural burial under an oak tree. It was pretty easy to organise. The funeral director had not previously worked with the burial ground but its all worked really smoothly. The burial ground warned us to avoid one of the local funeral directors and said the others in town were fine once you could get them away from their standard wooden box and cremation approach.

The burial ground we are using is a lovely, peaceful place just under Edge Hill (warwickshire) and can accommodate pretty much any kind of ceremony you want.

If you have any questions feel free to pm me.

Thanks all. FIL and I like the look of Clayton Wood very much - he is going to see if he can get a lucid word with MIL and find out if she has any preference to where she is actually buried location-wise.

Things unfortunately look as if they may happen more quickly than we thought, although the nurses at the hospice seem more positive this morning than they were last night - fingers crossed she at least lasts until the end of the week and gets to see her other son and family who live in Australia and meet her newest grandson who was born earlier this year.

Thanks again for all your support. Off to do some phoning now and get some balls rolling as far as I can at this stage.

Hi there. I work for a group of Woodland Burial Parks. We have one in Chiltern, one in Norwich and one in Epping which is probably your closest. Go to www.woodlandburialparks.co.uk
We always take everyone's wishes into account and the parks are non denominational and cater for every type of service including humanist. The staff on site are available to walk you round to chose the exact spot for a burial too and we give you 2-3 hours for the service instead of the often conveyer belt process. We have on-site facilities, a gathering place and we can help make the event a beautiful one - working with you to make the burial as individual as the person being buried.

A good friend is buried at the Chiltern one. It's such a lovely place, so so tranquil.