Neil Oliver Podcast Neil Oliver: New Versus Old!!!
Aug 14, 2025
Exploring the chilling significance of corpse roads and coffin roads, the discussion reveals how burial traditions once shaped community connections. Superstitions and emotional burdens linked to death practices stand in stark contrast to today's detached attitudes. Folklore surrounding abandoned places brings local legends to life, highlighting poignant stories of the past. The podcast ultimately reflects on how our relationship with death and memory has evolved, weaving a tapestry of ancient customs and modern interpretations.
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Coffin Roads As A Networked Landscape
- Coffin roads were dedicated landscape links used to carry the dead from homes to consecrated ground across rural Britain.
- They formed a fading spider's web of routes now often overgrown or lost to development.
Green Burial Corridors Proposal
- Professor John Ashton proposed planting 'green burial corridors' alongside motorways and railways as an environmentally friendly alternative.
- Neil Oliver found the idea jarring and compared it to burying people beside litter-strewn roads.
Parish Control Over Burial Practices
- Mother churches owned consecrated ground and centralized burials, reinforcing parish identity and financial interests.
- Centralized burials also reflected belief in communal resurrection and spiritual accountability.
