James Nottage’s last wish was to be buried with his mother and father in West Ham cemetery. But when he died two years ago there was no room left, so his family decided to lay him to rest in a reclaimed grave.

“At the end of the day, my dad wanted to be buried here,” Mr Nottage’s son David said. “But the grave was full so we had to purchase a reclaimed grave here instead.”

A labourer before retirement, Mr Nottage died at the age of 82. Although the family has bought a 50-year lease on the grave with the option to renew, Mr Nottage’s widow wants to be cremated when she dies. Her ashes will be placed in the grave.

David, 46, has been a gravedigger at West Ham cemetery, in the London Borough of Newham, for the past 14 years so he “knew the situation” with reclaimed burial plots. “We didn’t have any objection to it,” he said. “The existing remains are not disturbed. And we are allowed to put up our headstone.”

Of the 650 graves reclaimed last year in West Ham cemetery (where more than 180,000 people are buried in total), the vast majority had no existing tombstone. Although cemetery officials can reuse graves that are 75 years old, they only appropriate plots that have been in existence for at least 100 years.

Records on neglected graves do exist but David, who lives in Dagenham, said that the family had no interest in uncovering the name of the person buried in their father’s plot.

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