Direct cremation, with nothing added later

It suits some families and not others. It is likely the right choice if you would rather the practical side was handled simply, at a price agreed once, and your family would prefer to say goodbye in their own way and in their own time. If you would like mourners present, a service or a procession, that is a traditional funeral, and a local funeral director is the right person to arrange it.

£1,295, fixed, and it includes collection from a home, hospice, hospital or care home, care before the cremation in a private mortuary, the coffin, the cremation fee, every form and permission, and the return of the ashes to you. Two things can add to it, and only if you ask for them: a private viewing at our chapel of rest, £150, and urgent collection from a home, £250. If a fee set by someone else applies in your case, we tell you about it before anything is agreed.

Yes. A direct cremation is unattended, with no service and no mourners present, so no one attends the cremation itself. But you can visit your loved one beforehand. We arrange a private viewing at our chapel of rest in London or Nottinghamshire, for immediate family, by appointment. There is no service and no ceremony, and it costs £150. What a viewing is like is in our guidance.

Usually 7 to 10 days from your first call. Most of that is paperwork, the registrations and permissions that must be completed before a cremation can go ahead. We handle all of it and tell you where things stand at each stage.

At the City of London Crematorium for families in London, and at Babworth Crematorium near Retford for Nottinghamshire and Doncaster. Your loved one stays in the area they lived in, and collection is included anywhere within those three areas; each one is described on direct cremation area by area. If you are outside them, call us and we will tell you whether we can help.

We book the cremation once every registration and permission is complete, and we tell you the date as soon as it is confirmed. If a particular day matters to your family, say so on the first call and we will do what we can. Afterwards we tell you when the ashes are ready.

You can change your mind at any point before the cremation. We arrange direct cremations only, so if your family decides on a service, tell us and we will hand your loved one’s care over to the funeral director you choose, with every document we already hold.

Call us, at any hour, as soon as you would like to. You do not need any documents to make that first call, and nothing has to be decided tonight. You tell us where your loved one is, we agree the price and the next steps there and then, and the same coordinator stays with your family until the ashes are back with you.