Six feet greener

THE grounds at Hinton Park in Dorset make a pretty spot for a picnic. Patches of bluebells spread out under trees; streams and pathways wind through the woodland. But unlike one of the national parks it resembles, Hinton Park has some 6,000 people buried there. It is one of over 260 eco-friendly burial sites in Britain.

The ways that Britons choose to have their bodies disposed of after death are changing markedly. In 1960 only 35% of all funerals involved cremation; now 74% of them do, according to the Cremation Society of Great Britain. Less space in churchyards, the rising costs of funerals and the declining number of Christians have all contributed. But for the quarter of those contemplating death who prefer to be interred whole, new sorts of caskets and burial plots offer alternatives to a traditional wooden coffin in a churchyard.