A famous cemetery is almost full. Can it reuse old graves to add more space?
In death, as in life, it is expensive to have famous people as your neighbors.
There is hardly any room left Highgate Cemetery, a Victorian cemetery in north London where Karl Marx, George Michael and George Eliot are buried, along with 170,000 other Londoners. The price of a grave to rest in valued peace? It starts at 25,000 British pounds, or $31,700.
Those costs received attention British media this week, after the historic site notified the public, it had begun adding new graves.
Many pointed out the capitalist irony of such a high price tag, suggesting that the high fee for a plot close to Karl Marx would make the so-called father of communism disappear. 'turn over in his grave.Marx's grave is a big draw for the cemetery, and visitors pay 10 pounds, or about $12, to explore the grounds.
“Cemeteries are quite expensive places to maintain,” said Ian Dungavell, the director of the charity that runs Highgate Cemetery, adding that shrinking space on the site has partly contributed to the high cost of being buried there. “We are still dealing with a very limited resource.”
(There was “no improvement,” he said, because we were near Marx. “That's just the price.”)
But the group's ostensibly capitalistic approach is part of an existential problem that other cemeteries, in Britain and elsewhere, also face: how can a cemetery continue to function when it's running out of space?
“We have a huge problem with the cemeteries.”
Cremations are popular in much of Britain surveys from the Cremation Association which shows that more than 70 percent of the deceased have chosen this method in the past twenty years. By comparison, about 59 percent of deaths in the US were cremated in 2022.
But even with a high cremation rate, Britain faces a shortage of graves in many areas. Some cemeteries in London are already running out of space, according to experts, and other cities are not far behind.
“Crisis is an appropriate word,” says Helen Frisby, historian and research fellow at the University of Bath. “We have a huge problem with the cemeteries.”
Legal authorities are reviewing current regulations surrounding funerals, but the addition of new plots at Highgate Cemetery would make it one of the few London burial authorities able to reuse graves. The practice could help cemeteries survive, experts say, as the idea of ”eternal burial” is challenged. European countries have adapted short-term plot rentals or grave recycling to tackle the crowds.
Legislation in 2022 gave Highgate Cemetery the power to take back old and unused graves, a process it has optimistically called “serious innovation.” Empty graves and graves where burials took place more than 75 years ago can be legally repurposed.
The proposal will affect only about 500 graves in the cemetery for now, said Dr. Dungavell. Some grave owners were last recorded in the 1870s. Others were simply too difficult to trace, and the cemetery has spread the word by posting public notices about plots that will be reused. Owners of these graves have until July to object to their reuse.
For graves without objection, the existing remains will be buried deeper in the same spot and new burials will take place on top of them.
The idea is controversial, as was evident during a visit to the cemetery this week. Even on a cold day, visitors walked through tree-lined paths to admire epitaphs by artists, philosophers and beloved residents.
“For me it's a bit sacred,” said Thomas Swinburne, 57, who was visiting London from northeast England. 'The body is at rest. I wouldn't want my family members to be disturbed like that.”
“I wouldn't want to hide things.”
Built in 1839 on the edge of the city, Highgate is part of a group of Victorian cemeteries known as the 'Magnificent Seven'. As London's population boomed, private cemeteries were designed to solve overcrowding in existing churchyards.
Now it is almost full. Dr. Dungavell said his team had searched the cemetery maps for any gaps. In the past, they had dug up soil from existing graves to create new burial grounds, or narrowed existing paths to create more cremation sites. (They start at 5,000 pounds, or $6,300.) “I wouldn't want to overburden the place any further,” he said.
Other ideas he is exploring include shared vaults for those being cremated. The group is also on trust financing to help preserve nature at its location and make it more accessible to visitors.
But despite all efforts, the price tag for burial is still high.
“It's ironic that these very expensive graves are located close to one of our harshest critics of capitalism,” said Julie Rugg, a social policy researcher at the University of York. But, she said, the new system was a pragmatic response to the need to protect the site, and that the money would help towards its management.
Dr. Frisby said the cost of a grave at Highgate Cemetery was not typical for Britain, and graves usually cost thousands of pounds rather than tens of thousands. But there was a “social cachet” to being buried on such historic ground, she said.
“It is a very prestigious cemetery. It is able to recover those fees,” she said. “Most cemeteries can't do that.”
Some visitors to Highgate said it was time to think about different ways to lay loved ones to rest.
“When you run out of space, you have to think about new ways,” said Marlis Graf, 34, a tourist from Germany who visited Karl Marx's grave. “I'm actually a fan of eco-funerals, where we don't have gravestones or anything like that at all. Just trees.”
The decision to recycle a grave is ultimately a personal one, said Mackenzie Parker, 31, who was admiring gravestones with a friend. Her family are Roman Catholic and Ms Parker said she would have objected to her relative's grave being recycled on religious grounds.
But the request wouldn't have offended her, she said — the more opportunities the cemetery offered for people to share history, the better: “Their families can know they are in such a beautiful, ancient and protected place.”