Madonna respects Quakers’ burial right

The American pop star Madonna has again discovered that owning an English stately home can mean having to share her land with others.

Earlier this year, she and her husband, Guy Ritchie, the film director, successfully challenged the “right to roam” laws, although ramblers will still be allowed on to parts of their £9 million estate in Wiltshire.

Now she has been obliged to allow Quakers to conduct a funeral on a burial ground in the middle of her 1,132-acre Ashcombe estate, near Tollard Royal.

This time, however, she has made no attempt to end the centuries-old tradition, and instead has respected the Quakers’ right of way to the burial ground.

“It is Quaker property and we have a right of way to it which has been established over many years,” said Audrey Acton, the clerk of Shaftesbury Preparative Meeting, the local Quaker group.

“We have a good relationship with Madonna’s farm manager and if we need to get to the burial ground we speak to him or the gamekeeper and organise it. We don’t have to ask but it is courteous and sensible to maintain good relations with the estate. We want to make sure they are not organising a shooting party on the day of a burial.”

In 1663 the founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox, visited William Fry, the then owner of Ashcombe, who became a Quaker. Because Quakers were being persecuted and could not be buried in consecrated church ground, Fry gave land to be a perpetual burial ground for the society.

The Quakers and the estate consulted before the recent funeral of a 91-year-old member of the local meeting.

Article by Richard Savill

Source: Telegraph.co.uk