Meadows of Peace, Thornbury

Bristol Memorial Woodlands is a former farm north of Bristol which since its establishment in 2001 has been providing burial plots in a gradually maturing woodland setting. Several wooded fields and the well-established hedgerows between provide a variety of peaceful areas for burial and the original farms buildings have been converted into a non-denominational Chapel and Reception Room. 

Several wooded burial areas have been established as also has a separate Jewish burial ground and one for Muslim burials. This last, named Meadows of Peace, has been established since 2017 although as yet it lacks dedicated funerary buildings. 

The proposal is for a single linear building, set into the rising ground so that its green roof is continuous with the surrounding landscape, and containing a sequence of rooms for prayer, ritual ablution, funerary preparation and meetings. The building is aligned so that the Prayer Room faces Mecca, while a linear arcade providing access to all the rooms faces onto a water garden which adjoins the landscape of the burial ground.  

The cemetery itself, laid out under the guidance of landscape architect Kim Wilkie comprises a series of serpentine mounds, each containing a row of graves whose burial mounds form a landscape of planted serpentine ridges with paths between, all laid out on a gentle slope and expanding westwards as burials proceed. This simple and elegant landscape is the focus of the arcaded building and the intervening water garden.  

Unfortunately (for us) the local Muslim community for whom the building is intended have expressed their preference that the project proceed under the care of a Muslim architect, thus ending our involvement.