Headstone

A headstone is the stone that marks a grave. It carries the person's name and dates and, if the family wants one, a line of inscription. A monument is a larger memorial, a cross, a kerb set or a sculpture, on the same grave.

Granite, marble, sandstone and slate are the usual materials, with granite the most common in modern cemeteries because it weathers slowly. Each cemetery and churchyard has its own rules on size, material and wording, and the stonemason will check them before the stone is made.

A headstone goes up some months after a burial, once the ground has settled, and the mason needs the cemetery's permission and a fee before it is fixed. For ashes there is a smaller version, a plaque or a tablet, at a garden of remembrance or on a family grave.

What a grave costs before the stone

A headstone comes on top of the cost of the grave. A cemetery charges once for the exclusive right of burial and again for the interment, and together those run from around £1,000 in parts of the north to several thousand pounds in London and the south east.

Graves without a headstone

A natural burial ground does not use conventional headstones. The grave is marked by a tree or by wild plants instead, and a natural burial is generally less expensive than a traditional one.

Memorials for ashes

Nearly every crematorium has a garden of remembrance, where ashes can be scattered or buried and marked with a plaque or an entry in the book of remembrance. It suits a family that wants a place to visit without a grave to maintain. Ashes can also be interred in an existing family grave, for a fee much smaller than a new one.

Read next

The choice between a grave and ashes is in cremation or burial. What families do with the ashes instead of a headstone is in what to do with the ashes, and the urn itself in choosing an urn.

Related terms: Burial ceremony and Memorial service. Every term in the funeral glossary.