A WIDOW has been tending the wrong grave for six months in Bridport’s woodland burial ground.
Una Henley-Coulson from Eype said when her husband Timothy, died aged 74, she was offered the choice to bury him in the woodland area and agreed.
But two years later the site became so overgrown she mistook the plot and began planting flowers on someone else’s grave.
Now she is calling for a meeting with Bridport Town Council to discuss the cemetery.
She said: “I’ve planted bluebells, snowdrops, primroses and cowslips, things you would expect in a woodland burial site so someone is going to have a surprise in the spring.
“I spend most of yesterday on the internet looking at different woodland burial sites and they all seem to be nicely kept. To me a woodland grave should have bluebells and things like this and have meadow flowers but up there it is just like a jungle. It’s just one step too far with the wilderness.
“I don’t think people understand what they are allowed and what they are not allowed to do.
“Your head is all over the place when you lose someone and you are not given any information about what you can do and what you can’t do.
“I was tending a grave there for six months and it was the wrong one because it was that bad. The caretaker put stakes in the ground to let me know where it was and I find the one I have been tending is five graves away.
“Something needs to be sorted about this.
“Ideally I would like a meeting with the council. I feel they should give leaflets stating what your rights are and what you can expect.
Mrs Coulson thought she would always remember the spot where her husband was laid to rest by a distinctive clod of earth.
“But when it was waist-high this clod of earth seemed to disappear. I knew it was near the seat and I assumed it was the right one. I don’t know how the owner of the grave will feel when they see the flowers come up.
“I want to know what rules apply – are we allowed to cut the grass ourselves, are we allowed to plant bulbs? What type of trees will they plant themselves and will the grass disappear when they are established or will it resemble a wildflower meadow? All these things are important.
“I have no problems with council plans providing we are told at the start. We, and I mean everybody, have just suffered a bereavement and cannot always think logically.
“In my own case I had to make the decision and on reflection feel it may have been the wrong one.”
Last week grieving Jill Tuck, whose twin brother is buried n the site, blasted Bridport Town Council for the way it keeps the site – but town council surveyor Daryl Chambers says it is supposed to look like a natural woodland with unmarked graves.
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