February 2012

The snow and ice has arrived at last, but this only added to the moving funeral we had last week where the family had invited along 3 members of the North-West (Lancashire) branch of the North Wales Bird Trust. Ian and his 2 colleagues brought along a barn owl, a short-eared owl and an African horned owl, and followed the coffin up to the gravside where they were raised aloft into the clear blue winter sky, wings spread, in salute to the deceased. Each of the mourners had selected a feather from a basket, and came forward to weave it into the top of the coffin, so that the whole top was covered in feathers from a variety of birds! It was magnificient and poignant. The Trust uses the birds therapeutically and educationally, going in to hospices, homes and schools to show the birds for a donation to the charity. They believe this 'owl burial' at Brocklands to have been the very first in the country!
(see www.northwalesbirdtrust.co.uk)
Speaking of the cold - check out the
latest Blog post: Promession Progression.

January 2012

Welcome to the start of a brand new year, and we hope you enjoy our new-look Brocklands website! We produced our first website back in 2001 shortly after opening, when most websites were just a single page! We adapted and expanded the information and photos over the years to keep you informed and enlightened. Then last year, having been open for over 10 years, we thought it was a good time to reassess the business and to have professional advice on a more modern website and social media technology. Hence we now have a regular monthly Blog, a Facebook page and even Twitter. They are all interconnected, so you can keep in touch with Brocklands by whichever of these is your preferred choice. All your old favourites are here, including interesting facts about funeral history and green burial philosophy which you won't find on other natural burial websites. We pride ourselves on giving clear, accurate information to help families find the best burial options for them. Our new-look site includes things such as photos of the trees in the Treelist as well as the useful descriptions of them; a Google map link on the Where are We? page; Testimonials (we receive many, so it was hard to choose, but we will change them to show the range of comments made, and of course, every individual has given permission for their testimonial to be used); and illustrations to show you clearly the differences between our lovely native bluebell and the Spanish bluebell invader! There is much, much more, so please take your time and browse through our pages. ENJOY!!!

November 2011

We had a very successful - and dare I say it for a business dealing with death? - a jolly day at Brocklands for the ANBG meeting. Some 23 managers and owners of natural burial sites from Northumberland and Lincolnshire right down to Surrey and Oxfordshire and even Wales, made their way here on the Friday to meet up for a meal in the evening. This allowed us all to meet up with new friends as well as old, and catch up with new developments on the various sites. Saturday was a full day of meeting in the Haybarn, including a tour of our site. The agenda included the design of an ANBG leaflet for the public (so that you know what a member green burial ground should be doing to maintain good standards of service and procedure); the pros and cons of compost toilets (many sites aren't lucky enough to have a building such as we have); and feedback on burial site managers who have become funeral directors themselves. As natural, or green, burial sites become more common around the UK (there are some 200 nationally)it is important that there be some sort of regulation. At present approx 50% of private sites (such as Brocklands) are members, which means that only these sites promise to abide by the Association's Code of Conduct, and give families a Feedback form after every funeral, so that they can make comments direct to the Association, good or bad. Members are listed on the Natural Death Centre website (see our Links). A hearty lunch was provided by Linda Brennand and sister Alison, served in the stables' Meeting Room, with log fire and - well, Rosie Inman-Cook (ANBG manager) had to crack the whip to get us all to leave and return to the business in hand. Thanks to her and Susan (NDC) for allowing us to host the meeting, and to everyone for making the stalwart effort to come all this way.

PS., don't forget to have a look at our Blog - other posts include "Edible Invitations", "Season of Mellow Fruitfulness" and the latest one will be "A Burning Question" -!!!

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October 2011

If you look at our 'Burials' page, you will see that we can now offer full Funeral Director services through a local Settle Funeral Director - Duncan Robinson. Duncan has carried out many burials here for us, and has travelled from Scotland to Birmingham to bring people here for burial at Brocklands. This is particularly useful for families who aren't local, but who want a Director they can trust, and who knows how things work here.

Back in April we went south to the Association meeting, and later this month we are proud to be hosting the second ANBG meeting of the year, here at Brocklands. Green burial site owners and managers from all over the country will be be coming to have a look at our site, discuss issues pertinent to the green burial movement, and have a hearty northern lunch in our 1890 Arts and Crafts Stable block.

August 2011

As you can see from our Home page, our Brocklands Blog has been up and running since July. Our trusty Truffles writes a post at the beginning of each month, on various topics from interesting facts about funerals in history, to current trends, to nature and wildlife issues.We hope you find these posts of interest, and please do leave comments. You can access the Blog by clicking on the button on the Homepage of this website, or by going to www.brocklandsblog.co.uk - and why not click the Email button on the Blog and get sent email notification each month of the latest post! The first post was a Welcome, then "To Be-biodegradable or Not to Be-biodegradable", and the latest is "Journey to the Final Destination". Enjoy!

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May 2011

In April the Association of Natural Burial Grounds held the first of its twice-yearly meetings. This is a chance for burial ground managers and owners to get together and discuss topical issues in the funeral business, and to take decisions on matters concerning the ANBG. This time it was held at Chiltern Park Woodland Burial in Beaconsfield, and Julia and Pat (who manages the site when we are away) drove down for the all-day meeting. It was, of course, interesting to have a tour around another green burial site - this one is very large, set in 70 acres of existing woodland, but there is always something to be learnt, and we made some new friends from other sites.

Then in May, we had two visits from Holland: a couple of years ago we hosted a similar visit organised by Joyce Sengers, a Dutch Landscape designer who has spent a lot of time in the UK learning about our green burial scene, as we have more sites than any other country in the world! Joyce brought a party belonging to one town council, who were keen to add a green burial site to their existing cemetery - so they had their woodland manager, the grounds maintenance people, even a funeral director! This was interesting for us too, to be able to ask about burials in another EU country. For example, in Holland it is law that the lining of every coffin MUST be biodegradable, even though the burial is in a standard coffin in a conventional cemetery. This is also the case in France. Unusually, although Britain leads the world in green burials, we have no such law, either for green or traditional burials, which seems a little strange. This is why some green coffin manufacturers can get away with putting plastic linings in biodegradable coffins, or having vinyl-printing on the coffin exterior, which again has water-resistant properties and slows down the degeneration of the coffin. At Brocklands we offer a range of coffins that we have selected for being attractive, eco-friendly and biodegradable in the ground.

We then had a second visit, from Caroline and Floris van der Lande who own a small estate in Holland. Their situation had echoes of our own here at Cappleside, and they had already converted an old thatched Dutch tithe barn into business premises, and had a traditional campsite as well. As with us, their emphasis was on simplicity, tradition and quality. They wished to include a burial ground on some of their farmland, and we discussed the practicalities of having sheep grazing over the burial area - an idea we had already intended as Phase 3 here at Brocklands. If you fancy some traditional camping in Holland with fishing, campfires and walks, have a look at their website (in English) on our Links page.

Not long after this we had a visit from Stephen Parkin, manager at Peace Funerals green burial sites near Sheffield. Their 2 sites are slightly older than ours, and like us, they are having a revamp this year. Stephen came to look at 2 or 3 other sites to get a close-up idea of how they were operating, and to see how his could best develop. Again, this meant we had a chance to find out exactly how their sites ran, and whether there was anything to be emulated or avoided! And that's not all, as in July we have another visit planned - this time from Wooler town council in Northumberland, who also wish to open a green burial ground, and are in the process of fact and cost-finding. They are sending 3 members to have a look here and to discuss problems, benefits and planning issues.

Speaking of a Brocklands revamp - let's tell you what we've been up to apart from having burials and entertaining visitors. When we started the burial ground back in 2000 the whole green burial concept was still quite new, the very first site having opened in Carlisle in 1994. We fenced a 1.5 acre corner off Brocklands field (hence the name) which included the large 1714 Dales tithe barn, put in a new entrance, track and car park.

Phase 2 in 2004 was to convert the small adjacent barn into what is now known as the Haybarn, for ceremonies and refreshments and included a much-needed toilet for our many families who come from away. Now we are ready for Phase 3, which is actually many-pronged: firstly, we are currently dealing with the various authorities in order to extend the site into the whole of the rest of the field, which would make the overall size of Brocklands some 14 acres. Not all of the land would be suitable for burials, but that which is, we plan to divide into more woodland burials spreading across the top of the field from the existing woodland area, and having pasture burials on the low-lying land in front of the barn. 'Pasture burials' means that sheep would continue to graze over the land as they have done for hundreds of years. Their small feet don't disturb the soil or graves and they keep the integrity of the original landscape. This type of burial has been done at a few other sites, so it is a known and tried method. Brocklands will then be able to offer families 3 burial options: woodland burial with a tree planted, pasture burial where the animals continue to graze, and ashes burials.

In addition to the physical site, we are currently building a new-look website. We have had many, many kind things said about our website over the years, which is very heartening and always good to hear. However, the computer age has changed a lot in 10 years, and we decided the time was ripe to take some professional advice on how to bring the website up to date. This will be ready later in the year. For those of you who embrace current technology, we already have a Facebook page called "Brocklands Woodland Burial" where you can post comments, and which will be fed by our soon-to-be-ready Brocklands Blog. Both of these can be accessed from our main website, and give us the chance to let you know about new developments in green burials generally, or just curious pieces of information or observations about related subjects (such as the Dutch and French laws on biodegradable coffin linings, as above!) For those of you with camcorders at one of our burials (it's not often, but it does happen), if you wish to share images of the funeral you can have them posted on our up-and-running You Tube page "brocklandsburial". This can be a very useful way for those who still haven't experienced a green burial, to see what they can be like. Every one of them is unique, but your images can help to spread the positive experience to others. And of course, for those of you who groan at the thought of such modern social networking, don't worry, because our website will remain, as it always has been, the mainstay of all the core, important information, and you need not venture further if you don't wish to.

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