UK Cemetery: Share a Grave with a Stranger?
Jill Lawless, Associated Press (October 28, 2009)

In efforts to conserve and open up more grave space, the City of London Cemetery, the largest graveyard in the city, has begun reclaiming graves — digging up corpses at least 75 years dead, reburying them deeper, and putting new bodies on top for “double-decker” graves.

From the AP article:

Burks [the cemetery superintendent] points to a handsome marble obelisk carrying the details of the recently departed man buried underneath. The name of a Victorian Londoner interred in the same plot is inscribed on the other side. The monument has simply been turned around for its new user — whose family, Burks said, got a fancy stone monument for much less than the market price by agreeing to share.

While legally sound (well… there’s a loophole involved), it has been causing some turned stomachs… and turned up noses:

The problem is a very British one. Many other European countries regularly reuse old graves after a couple of decades. Britain does not, as a result of Victorian hygiene obsession, piecemeal regulation and national tradition. For many, an Englishman’s tomb, like his home, is his castle.