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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Fears Over Burial as Cemeteries Run Out of Space |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Wednesday, 04 May 2005 |
EDINBURGH--Cemeteries across the Capital are set to run out of space for new graves, raising fears that grieving families will struggle to find suitable burial plots within Edinburgh.
City leaders have been warned there is an "ever more urgent" need to find a suitable site for a new Edinburgh cemetery.
Four cemeteries, at Mortonhall, Portobello, South Queensferry and Rosebank, are expected to run out of space for new burial plots within five years.
The problem has been highlighted by the city's environmental services director Mike Drewery, who warned that one of the worst affected cemeteries was the Capital's principal burial site at Mortonhall.
In a report to councillors, he added: "Whilst the search for a suitable site for a new cemetery for the next 50 years continues, the need to find a replacement for Mortonhall becomes ever more urgent."
There are ten council-run cemeteries in Edinburgh which have new grave spaces, although there are several other private burial grounds and churchyards which are managed independently of the council.
Most of the council-run cemeteries in the city date back to the mid-19th century and more than half of all burials each year are in previously-used family plots.
The most pressing problem is at Mortonhall, which opened in 1960 and was supposed to last 50 years, but space is quickly running out.
Space for new graves is expected to run out within a year for Catholic burials and two years for non-Catholic ones.
The same problem is expected to affect Portobello, South Queensferry and Rosebank within five years.
More than 120 new graves are used at Mortonhall each year, out of an average of 300 burials there. In 1983, the cemetery was divided into two sections following a request from the Roman Catholic community.
The private Catholic cemetery at Mount Vernon was running short of new grave space, so the city council agreed to allocate 1000 new spaces at Mortonhall.
To date, 960 of these allocated spaces have been used, and the remaining 40 plots are expected to be filled by the end of this year.
Councillor Mark McInnes, the city's Conservative environment spokesman, said that he was very worried about the situation.
He said: "This is an issue that people perhaps only realise when they come to a point in their lives when they are considering their own burial plans or having a relative buried. It is a huge issue and one which the council doesn't seem to put very high on its agenda.
"The worrying thing is that people may well have the choice of burial within Edinburgh completely removed.
"They have to consider burial outside Edinburgh or cremation."
New graves in Portobello Cemetery are forecast to last only until the end of 2006, while the 50 new spaces remaining at South Queensferry Cemetery are expected to run out in two years.
The facts
SAFETY concerns after inspections of the 39 city council-run cemeteries led officials to lay down a total of 8104 headstones.
The flattened memorials were described as being "dangerously unstable", prompting fears of another fatal accident in a city cemetery.
In 1982, 15-year-old Thomas Clark was killed and his two friends seriously injured when a granite headstone fell on them while they were playing in Newington Cemetery.
Almost 60,000 memorials were inspected and 20 per cent were found to need a re-examination in a year's time.
The highest number of toppled headstones can be found in Warriston, Rosebank and Liberton cemeteries, as well as Morningside Cemetery, where one-in-three headstones was found to be unsafe.
Just over 2000 headstones have been laid flat in Warriston, while 1617 and 1316 memorials have been toppled in Morningside and Rosebank respectively. In Liberton, right, 1280 gravestones are now on the ground.
In contrast, a number of the Capital's cemeteries have received the all-clear from inspection teams, including Restalrig, South Leith and Mortonhall.
Source: The Evening News |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Tombs are the clothes of the dead and a grave is a plain suit; while an expensive monument is one with embroidery.” - R. Buckminster Fuller 1895-1
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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