What Is a Skip in a Cemetery?

Families who ask what is a skip in a cemetery are looking at one of two objects on the grounds. Both can sit in sight of a grave, and both get the same angry name.

One is a soil box, a timber pen that holds earth dug from a grave nearby until that grave is filled back in. The other is a waste skip, a metal bin for grass cuttings, dead flowers and other grounds rubbish.

The shape and the fill separate them, and the place the container stands shows whether the crew followed the safety code. Below is that check, the size and position of a soil box, and what to ask the office if one is covering a grave you care about.

How to Tell a Soil Box From a Waste Skip

A soil box, also called a soil tidy, is a pen of marine ply or other sheet timber that crews put up beside a grave before they dig. It keeps the spoil in one stack so the weight is not spread over nearby memorials and turf, and so stones do not roll back into the hole. A waste skip is a metal container a lorry delivers and later lifts away, and it is there for maintenance rubbish rather than for the earth from one burial.

If the container is sheet timber and the fill is clean soil, treat it as a soil box and use the placement rules below. If it is metal and the fill is mixed, treat it as a waste skip and call before the collection, because a tribute in there can leave the cemetery on the lorry.

Why Does Dug Soil Have to Sit Somewhere?

A grave has to be dug before the funeral, and the earth that comes out cannot sit in a loose ring around the hole. Loose spoil adds weight at the edge, which is how a grave side collapses, and it smothers the grass and any memorial it lands on. A soil box is the way crews hold that earth in one place until the burial is over and the grave is filled back in.

Candidates are assessed on training that includes erecting a soil box, and the same course covers customer care aimed at a standard the bereaved can accept. Council documents take the same line, and Ferryhill’s grave digging procedure calls the soil box best practice because it protects nearby memorials and turf.

The national code gives a worked size for a box serving a grave 5 feet (1.5m) deep, and it says the base and the end sheets should be made larger when the grave is deeper.

THE CODE’S SOIL BOX SIZE

• The base: One sheet of marine ply, 8 ft by 4 ft by 0.75 in (2.44m by 1.22m by 19mm).
• The back: One sheet, 8 ft by 3 ft by 0.75 in (2.44m by 0.91m by 19mm).
• The ends: Two sheets, each 4 ft by 3 ft by 0.75 in (1.22m by 0.91m by 19mm).
• The front board: One board, 8 ft by 1 ft by 1.5 in (2.44m by 0.3m by 38mm), held by two wooden pegs.
• The props: A 4 in by 4 in (102mm by 102mm) timber along the back and sides when the soil is heavy wet clay.

The code tells crews to cart away the soil that will not fit back into the grave before they fill the box. A lighter stack puts less pressure on the timber, and on the ground it stands on. Wet clay is the fill that makes a box bulge, which is why you sometimes see extra props, and why you should not lean on the front board.

The code was approved on 20 September 1999, and it describes itself as a framework rather than a fixed design, so a council can alter the timber after a local risk assessment.

Where Should a Soil Box Stand?

The setback is written into the Code of Safe Working Practice for Cemeteries, and the same code tells crews to move the box further out on poor ground. The measurement starts at the open hole. It is not a promise that the box will miss the grave next door.

These distances all come from one marking example in that code. The third and fifth lines follow from the printed measurements when one plot sits against the next.

Read down that table and the last row is the one families feel. A box kept at the minimum distance from the hole still stands partly on the next plot when the plots share a boundary. The 2-foot rule is there to stop the open grave collapsing. Keeping the box off the next grave is a separate choice, and it depends on whether the cemetery has somewhere else to put the soil.

Flintshire County Council had to make that second choice in public after a soil box was left on a grave at Northop Road Cemetery in Flint. In a June 2019 statement, spokesperson Steve Jones explained the box and then said this placement was the wrong one.

The item referred to as a skip was in fact a soil box, which is used to temporarily store the material excavated during the preparation of new graves, when they are in close proximity to other existing graves. They are constructed on legs that keep the bottom of the box, at least 300mm above the surface, so that no damage is caused to the grave underneath and are used only when there is no room available to store the excavated material. In this case, there was sufficient space to store the excavated material away from existing graves and the box should not have been used.

Steve Jones, spokesperson, Flintshire County Council

The 300mm gap under the box is Flintshire’s description of its own legs, and it does not appear as a national measurement in the code. The point that does travel is the last sentence: where there is room to store the soil away from existing graves, the box should not be standing on one. If you can see open grass or a path that would take the stack, that is the fact to put in the phone call.

What Happens to Flowers Near a Cemetery Skip?

Flowers end up in the wrong place for two different reasons, and the phone call is not the same for each. One happens because a new grave is being dug. The other happens because the grounds crew is clearing rubbish.

Tributes Lifted for a Neighbouring Burial

During a dig, crews lift vases and flowers off a neighbouring grave so the box or the spoil can sit down. Families then arrive to find the tribute in the mud, on the grass, or piled on the headstone, and it is reasonable to be angry about the way it was handled even when the dig itself was planned.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE GRAVE

• The flowers: Note where staff put them, on the grass, on the headstone, or in the mud.
• The photo: Include the tribute in the same frame as the box, so the office can see what was moved.

Ask the office to put those items back once the soil is removed, and say in the same call if a vase, a frame or a solar light is broken. A photograph taken before you tidy anything is the record of where the tribute was left.

Grass Cuttings and a Hired Skip

A hired skip is a maintenance tool, and it is often the bright container people photograph near a yard, a gate or a soil bay. It is not holding the earth from the burial next to your grave.

Alistair McKinnon, head of facilities, waste and grounds services at South Lanarkshire Council, said crews used a skip in the soil bay at Westburn Cemetery for grass cuttings and other maintenance material, and that fly-tipping in the skip and the adjoining car park meant the skip would be removed. That is a grounds-waste problem, not a grave-digging one.

• Expected fill: Grass cuttings, dead flowers and other material from looking after the grounds.
• Call about: A fresh tribute, a photograph or a vase that is inside the metal skip, because a waste carrier can take the load away.
• Do not assume: Removing the skip later returns what was already in it. Ask the office the same day, and describe the item.

If your flowers are still on the grave and the only skip in sight is full of grass by the gate, you are not looking at spoil from a new burial. Save the call for the office that books the collections, and keep the soil-box questions for the timber box.

What to Do When a Skip Covers a Grave

Start with the office, not with the box. You want a named person at the cemetery or the council bereavement service, the funeral the soil belongs to, and the date the grave will be clear.

1. Stay off the box and out of the open grave. The edges are the part the code is trying to protect, and a fall into a shored grave is the hazard the boards are there to prevent.
2. Take a photograph that shows your grave, the container and any empty ground nearby. The empty ground matters, because that is what Flintshire said should have been used instead.
3. Phone the cemetery office the same day. Ask which grave the soil came from, when the box will be lifted, and where your flowers were put.
4. If a vase or a photograph is broken, say so and ask how the council handles a claim for damage.
5. If you can see bone in the soil, say that at the start of the call and leave the soil untouched.

IF YOU CAN SEE BONE

• Leave it: Do not sift the soil or take any of it away with you.
• The call: Tell the cemetery office at the start of the conversation, before you discuss flowers or broken ornaments.
• The record: Keep a wide photograph of the scene, and do not publish a close image of remains.

Tell the office what you saw, and ask for the name of the person who will deal with it. Sorting through the spoil yourself turns a digging mistake into a further disturbance of whatever is in the soil.

What Are the Boards Around an Open Grave?

On the day of a funeral the soil box is only one part of the scene. You will also see planks, green matting and, if someone is still working, a ladder in the grave. Those pieces are there for the burial party and for anyone who might otherwise step into an open hole.

• Walkboards: Planks run along the grave, supported at each end, and they have to be strong enough for the pallbearers and the coffin.
• Grass matting: Imitation grass is laid on the staging with no folds or gaps, so mourners, clergy and staff do not trip.
• A cover: Any grave left with nobody working on it is to be boarded over so a visitor cannot fall in.
• A ladder: This is the way in and out. The code says it stays in place while someone is working in the grave, as the emergency exit.

A second person is recommended once work goes deeper than 3 feet (0.91m), so someone at the surface can raise the alarm. The code ties that precaution to the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 and the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.

The HSE guide to work in confined spaces explains what counts as a confined space and what a planned system of work requires. You do not need that leaflet to speak to the cemetery office. It is there if you want the safety duty behind the ladder and the boards, rather than a guess about why the grave looks unfinished.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Soil in a Skip From My Relative’s Grave?

The soil in a soil box is earth dug from the grave being prepared. When the box rests on a neighbouring grave, that earth has come from the new hole, not from the grave underneath, unless the cemetery is reopening that plot for a further burial. The office can tell you which of those two is happening, and that is the first question to ask.

How Long Does a Cemetery Soil Box Stay?

It stays while the grave it came from is open, and it should be lifted once that burial has been filled back in. The national code does not set a number of days. Ask which funeral the soil belongs to, and on what date the box will be taken away, then note the name of the person who gave you the date.

Will the Cemetery Warn Me Before a Soil Box Goes Up?

The code calls it courteous to contact the owner when a memorial has to be moved aside, so the owner knows the move is meant to protect both the digger and the stone. It does not set out a warning step for a soil box on its own. If your headstone has been shifted and nobody called, ask when it will be put back, and remember that staff are assessed on judging whether a nearby memorial is stable before they dig.

How Do I Recognise a Hired Waste Skip?

Look for a metal body and the lugs or chains a lorry hooks onto when it lifts the container. A soil box is sheet timber, with a low front board and no lifting gear. Mixed grass, plastic and old wreaths point to the waste skip, while clean clods of earth point to the soil box.

What Should I Do If I See Bone in the Soil?

Phone the cemetery office, say what you can see, and leave the soil where it is. The cemetery code treats this as a legal limit, not a tidying job: buried remains are not to be disturbed unless the proper legal authority has been obtained, and that limit includes cremated remains. Ask what will happen to the material and who is responsible for the next step.

A photograph that shows the container, your grave and any empty ground nearby is the useful record. Pair it with two questions to the office, which grave the soil came from and when your grave will be clear, and you will know whether this is ordinary digging or a box that should have stood somewhere else.

Disclaimer: This article is an educational guide to cemetery soil boxes and waste skips and is informational only. It is not legal advice, a method for working in a grave, or a substitute for the rules of the burial authority that owns the cemetery. Speak to the cemetery office, and to a solicitor if remains have been disturbed or property on a grave has been damaged, before you take any further step. Distances, timber sizes and training rules here reflect the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management code and the council statements cited, and a burial authority can adapt them after its own risk assessment.