About us

Wild Heart Coffins is made up of wife and husband team, Caz and Tom Ingall. Caz is the basketmaker and coffin weaver, while Tom helps more with the woodworking side of things. Click below our images to read more about us both.

I made my first basket in 2010 and was immediately hooked on both the craftform and the fact that I could be in control of everything along the journey of bringing a basket into being - from growing, harvesting and preparing the willow, to using only my hands and a few simple tools to create a wide variety of beautiful and functional items.
Helping to weave my aunt-in-law, Rosie’s, willow coffin after she died in 2015 was a profoundly moving and beautiful experience. Not only did it open my eyes to a new level of willow work, it also really clarified my perception of our modern culture’s disconnection from death, dying and grief, and offered a way for me to take my basketmaking skills in a new direction.
I knew at that time I wanted to eventually make my own coffins. Five years later, over a period of four days, the amazing Mel Bastier taught me and my husband, Tom, how to weave a coffin from start to finish. From this place, Wild Heart Coffins was born…
Since starting to make coffins in 2020, my curiosity of and passion for connecting people more with the processes around death and dying have inspired me to start on the journey of becoming a Death Doula. I am a member of End of Life Doula UK, and am currently part way through the Living Well Dying Well End of Life Doula training.

Living on our organic farm in Warwickshire, I split my time between managing the farm and developing the different projects we have on the land here and working out of my workshop converted from one of the old farm buildings. I work with all kinds of wood, both sawn timber for furniture and joinery and in the round for roundwood timber framing buildings. Working with my hands is when I'm happiest, and none more so than when I'm carving wooden spoons and working with green wood.
I really love willow work and have done bits of basketmaking myself over the last 15 years, originally inspired by my mother Jane (who also makes the calico linings for the coffins) as she has been a lifelong basketmaker. I prepare the wooden coffin bases and lids for Caz to work from. In this collaboration, I am able to bring my work with sawn wood joinery to the coffin making process. Choosing from a range of local hardwoods such as Oak, Walnut, Field Maple, Sycamore and Ash, I can select wood for the coffins that compliments the style and willow used, and helps to make each coffin completely unique.
I also handcarve the coffin toggles from hazel cut from our nut orchard here on the farm.

‘Wild Heart - Weaving Life Into Death’

In June 2023, photographer and film maker Sarah Mason (https://www.sarahmasonphotography.co.uk) came and spent 24 hours with us here on our farm shooting this beautiful short film about our work. While it’s primarily about Wild Heart Coffins, it’s also about what else we get up to on this small piece of land in Warwickshire we call home.

Introducing ‘Wild Heart - Weaving Life Into Death’…

Back in November 2020, as Wild Heart Coffins was starting out, Caz chatted to the very lovely Jeffery Hart all about weaving willow coffins, on his brilliant podcast series ‘Building Sustainability’. If you’d like to hear this conversation, please have a listen by clicking on the image behind…