Graveyard usage

[SunshineCake]

I've just been having a conversation with DH and it has made me think of something I can't find out about.

In graveyards I have seen gravestones for people who died in the 1880's. It would be amazing to think they are still being tended by a relative but I expect extremely rare. Given thousands of people are buried every year where do they all go? If authorities can't get in touch with the persons family who died in 1880, and where there is room in the plot, is the stone removed and then someone unrelated buried there? Space has to be a factor. DH and I are going to be cremated but I'm sure many thousands of people still want to be buried.

If there is a better topic please let me know, I did look through them all but nothing obvious came to mind.

Some councils are running out of space. Others have enough space to last centuries.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c7f76c52-7dc1-11eb-823e-250f70612dc4?shareToken=9db7bdd134775474bf0b4774e8d07c9d

Only 18 years left where I live 😳

Just saw this online which reminded me of this post.
Some cemeteries have a "2 tier" policy www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56912166?adobe_mc=TS%3D1620216715%7CMCAID%3D30489EC8D79FE26F-40001599EBB28716

I think a graveyard was found during the building of Crossrail. After the archeologists had done some investigations I think the bodies were exhumed and re-buried elsewhere.

I saw that too @ofwarren. I know they signed to agree but I'd expect they thought it would be decades in the future. Poor family.

@SunshineCake
Bill Bryson talks about this in his book At Home. Can't quite remember the details but you can probably find an excerpt on Google books. I'll dig my copy out in the morning as I'd like to know (again 😂)

@SunshineCake

I think we'll agree to disagree as over my 18:15 post, SoupDragon.

I still worry about space because eventually the plots with room for a few more will be full unless the body and coffin really does disintegrate to nothing.

I helped my uncle dig my grandmother’s grave, and her husband’s coffin had entirely disintegrated, and only a few bits of bone left — there were 23 years between their burials. Another uncle was buried in the same grave eight years later.

I've seen baby graves where there are a few different names on the headstone and they are obviously not related.

The saddest one I saw though was next to one with 4 in, the marker just said 'baby'.

My DF was going to be involved in the re-use of a very small, old graveyard. They would have had to excavate a certain amount of soil/bones and place it in a certain place, I think it was in another cemetery. The headstones could be got rid of.
He didn’t end up doing the job, but someone else did a few years later. There’s flats on it now.

This is why the Victorians overcame their abhorrence of cremation - their graveyards were bursting at the seams.
If you live near Bristol, Arnos Vale cemetery is worth a visit. It was created as a landscaped private cemetery, then abandoned and was almost lost as a housing development. But rescued and is a beautiful space.
In the village I research, the level of the churchyard is several feet higher than the surrounding land, for obvious reasons. But what surprised me was that only a small number of burials have a tombstone. Probably because all they could afford was a wooden cross.