Would you fancy spending eternity inside a burial chamber in the corner of a field in Wiltshire?
The first “Neolithic” long barrow to be built in the UK for 5,500 years has been completed and already the first urn of human ashes has been placed inside.
The structure at All Cannings near Devizes, took almost nine months to build, using traditional materials and stone working techniques.
It was privately financed and cost about £200,000 to build, can hold about 1,000 urns and has now opened officially.
The first paying client, Adrian Gray, who interred his wife Carol’s ashes in a pewter urn behind a sealing stone in one of the barrow’s niches, said it was “amazing”.
“I’m so pleased we were able to do this. It’s an incredible honour for us to have the first niche, in the first long barrow, for five-and-a-half thousand years.
“It’s a magnificent chamber. I think my wife would have been very pleased with what we’ve done.”
Mr Gray said the particular niche selected was chosen by a butterfly.
“After my wife passed away I kept seeing butterflies flying into the house and in the wardrobes and on the day we came [to choose the niche] there was a butterfly in this chamber flitting about.
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