The Natural Death Centre

The Natural Death Centre is a charity dedicated to encouraging openness around death and dying, particularly through funerals, and to imagining creative, sustainable solutions to the practical and spiritual problems of our mortality.

Independent funeral advice

Since our inception in 1991, the NDC has sought to inform, empower and inspire the public in all matters relating to death and dying, and in particular to increase awareness of funeral choices outside of the mainstream.

We believe that death lies at the heart of our humanity, that within it are great opportunities for personal and social growth, and that if we so wish, we should be encouraged and helped to face it on our own terms without the mediation of a doctor, priest or funeral director.

We helped create the expanding network of woodland burial sites and we run the Association of Natural Burial Grounds which has set a standard for the industry, protecting the consumer as well as representing the operators of such sites on a national strategic level. To find your nearest natural burial ground please click here to see our directory list.

Despite our long running links with these and other aspects of environmentally friendly funerals we are not a green pressure group, but primarily a movement for social change. We have played a central part in demystifying the traditional funeral, helping to encourage awareness of choice and the possibility of participation, creating the opportunity for new rituals to emerge.

We are, and will continue to be an informed and reflective presence on issues such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, childhood bereavement, changing funeral practices, dying at home, pain relief, religious and non-religious expressions of grief.

New challenges that face us are to be involved in the application of new technologies to replace gas cremators, to participate in the design of such buildings that house them, to increase the dialogue between palliative care and the funeral industry, to assist our colleagues in other countries to achieve what the NDC has achieved, to hold the spiritual middle ground between fundamental religion and fundamental atheism and to continue to challenge the taboos surrounding death. After nearly twenty years, we consider the work of the NDC more important than ever.

The Natural Death Handbook

For a complete listing of the UK's 200 natural burial grounds and a location map, plus all the eco-coffin suppliers, how to organise a funeral with or without a funeral director, the law regarding burial on private land, etc, please see The Natural Death Handbook (4th ed). £15.50 including 1st class postage & packaging securely online via our bookshop or over the phone (tel. 0871 288 2098) by credit card. £14.99 incl. p&p by cheque made payable to NDC. Orders posted same day wherever possible, and will include update sheets to bring the directories up to date.

A 'Living Will'

An Advance Healthcare Directive or Living Will, plus an Advance Funeral Wishes form, can be ordered securely online via our bookshop or over the phone, or by cheque (£7 payable to NDC). An emailable PDF version costs only £5.

Newsletters and events

To receive our newsletter and invitations to events, please see our friends page