Ideas with ashes

In the UK, around 78% of funerals involve a cremation, which then leaves our families the decision of what to do with their loved one’s ashes. However, there’s no immediate haste to make a decision. You are welcome to take the ashes home with you for as long as you want, before making plans, or we can keep them securely at our premises. 

If you do take the ashes home, you could simply keep them in a casket or perhaps place them in your garden. If you do decide to ‘bury’ the ashes, then we can suggest caskets which are made for this purpose and won’t split after time. It’s worth considering, though, that if you bury an urn in your garden, you may not always live in that property – so you might want to consider placing them in an ornamental pot, which is portable. Of course, if you do move, you may simply wish to leave them in that garden, knowing they were ‘at home’ there.  

We offer a wide variety of urns and your choice will be partly dictated by what you decide to do with the ashes. If you are storing them at home – perhaps on a shelf – then we can offer some really stunning containers.

Ashes can also be interred in a cemetery, including our new local one at Summersales, where there are a number of options available.  We can support families to do this and can arrange for a small service if required.

It's worth remembering that ashes can be split, which means that even if you opt for an interment, some can be kept aside for perhaps making into a piece of jewellery or scattering elsewhere. We offer a range of scatter tubes in different designs.

Some of our families chose to scatter their loved one’s ashes in a garden of remembrance and, again, there is an area set aside for that at Summersales. Often though families will take the ashes to a location which means something to their loved one – such as a favourite beauty spot or holiday location.

You may wish to scatter ashes abroad – perhaps at a special holiday location or maybe that person was born in another country. Is it possible to transport ashes overseas (ideally in your hand luggage) but it is sensible to take a letter explaining that you are transporting ashes and we can help families with this.

As increasingly popular option is to have a small proportion of a loved one’s ashes made into jewellery or keepsakes. Here the ashes can either be incorporated into glass under heat, so that they are part of the piece – perhaps cufflinks or a ring. Alternatively, a small amount could be placed in a small ashes holder which can then be slipped into a locket or a paperweight for example. There are a variety of options available.

If your loved one enjoyed nature, then Ashes To Blooms combines ashes with a mixture of UK native wildflower seeds to create bespoke seed balls. Depending on where you decide to plant these seed balls, the company has created mixes for clay soil, chalk soil, shade and woodland.

Other options include incorporating your loved one’s ashes into some fireworks for a memorial send-off with a bang or even scattering ashes in space. Here a proportion of ashes are launched into space to altitudes of sometimes over 100,000 feet, before being released into stratospheric winds. They can then travel around the globe for several months before falling back to earth as rain or snow.

We can help you with any of these options. Please just pop in or call us on: 01892 611811.