The Cemetery of the Year Awards, designed to raise the profile and awareness of stone memorials, went ahead for the second year against a backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic that has put burial authorities under additional pressure.
Although many Cemetery Managers have been working from home for much of the period covered by these Awards, they saw a marked improvement in the scores, indicating that the competition is having a positive effect on promoting best practice in cemeteries.
The Parish, Town and Community Council category again attracted the largest number of entries, providing many examples in all categories of how the questions and feedback provided by the competition has prompted positive changes, benefitting everyone involved in the death care industry and the bereaved.
The competition this year also included a new category, the BRAMM Memorial Design Award, which invited memorial masons to enter a national competition and showcase their work.
BRAMM is the registration system used by many cemeteries to accredit qualified memorial masons to erect stone memorials in their grounds to the standards required by BS 8415.
The Memorial Design Award was free to enter and open to any memorial mason, who could enter any memorial they had erected in a cemetery or churchyard in the past five years.
Memorials were marked for their innovation, personalisation and originality by a team of memorial masons and Burial Authority Association board members from BRAMM.
The Gold Award-winning entry came from Mackays Memorial Headstones in Scotland. It receives the £1,000 prize as well as a CYA Gold Certificate.
The Gold Award winners receive £1,000 cash prize for their cemetery, a Cemetery of the Year 2021 Gold Award engraved plaque and Cemetery of the Year 2021 Gold Award certificate, and a Cemetery of the Year press release that can be used to promote their work and achievements.
Results this year (when there are more than two Silver winners it is because there was a tie):
Large Burial Ground
- Gold –Philips Park Cemetery
- Silver – Ropery Lane Cemetery
- Silver – Fallings Heath Cemetery
- Silver – St Helens Cemetery
Small/Medium Burial Ground
- Gold – Memoria Kirkleatham Cemetery and Crematorium
- Silver –Moorside Cemetery
- Silver –Tipton Cemetery
Parish, Town and Community Council Burial Ground
- Gold – Forest Row Cemetery
- Silver – Chesham Bois Burial Ground
- Silver – Syston and District Cemetery
- Silver – Cyngor Cymuned Llanrug Cemetery
Natural Burial Ground
- Gold – Clandon Wood Nature Reserve and NBG
- Silver – Old Park Meadow NBG
- Silver – Hay Meadow BG
Pictured below is the team from memorial masons Mackays Memorial Headstones in Scotland that won the new category for the Best Memorial in the Cemetery of the Year Awards.
