Booking burial service times
Burial services are offered from 10:00am to 3:00pm. Applications for burial must be made to the cemetery office between the hours of 8:30am and 4:30pm Monday to Friday (excluding Public Holidays). Interments must take place between the hours of 10am and 3:00pm straight to grave.
Please be respectful of other mourners on arrival for your service.
Your Funeral Director
Your Funeral Director will usually provide advice about booking your preferred service, day and time along with all the required paperwork and information about coffin bearing, flowers and special mementoes.
Choice cemetery section
Astwood cemetery offers the following choice for your burial:
- Existing main burial areas limited space – Speak to the team
- New burial main burial Link to map
Special sections are provided for the following:
- Children sections (numbers)
- Natural burial Link
- Muslim Burial area
- Commonwealth War graves
Please note space at St John’s cemetery is now limited – please contact us.
Upkeep of graves
Families usually remove their flowers several days after the funeral as they can become unsightly. But if they are not cleared after 14 days, the cemetery staff are authorised to dispose of them. The council offer a service to support families to maintain their graves including a fresh flower and tidy up service. Please contact us.
Open Coffin in the chapel
Coffins may be open in the chapel during the service, at the request of the family and at the discretion of the manager unless there are restriction in place such as a national pandemic. Remember to speak to your Funeral Director first about this.
Use of existing Graves
If a member of your family or your loved one is already buried at Astwood or St John’s and a double grave has been purchased you may wish to arrange with your Funeral Director to use the same grave for example burying a husband and wife or parent and child together. Your FD will advise in relation to the required paperwork including the grave deed which shows ownership.
Grave preparation
When the council excavates a grave in a close location to an existing grave, it may be necessary to take steps to both protect existing graves and memorials and enable the safe preparation of the new grave. An approved stonemason will remove and re-erect and affected memorial stone as soon as possible after the burial.
The council on some occasion need to put soil boxes on graves next to those that need to be opened for a burial without notice. If this has to be done, we will endeavour to contact those lease owners that may be affected. Our new soil boxes provide a clean, neat option and leave no lasting marks once removed. Cemetery staff will remove the soil as quickly as possible and leave the grave in a clean and tidy condition.
We respectfully request that any representatives of the deceased who would like to backfill a grave make their wishes known and adhere to instructions given by the cemetery staff in attendance. The shoring will remain in place and will only be removed by Council staff at the appropriate time during the backfill process.
Grave ownership
When a grave is purchased it is on a lease basis for a period of 30 or 99 years following which the lease may be extended, this is known as the Exclusive Right of Burial. View our Fees and Charges.
Please note you do not own the land, as this remains in the Council’s ownership. You as the registered grave lease owner are responsible for the upkeep and safety of the memorial.
We welcome any individual requests for a funeral service i.e. horse-drawn carriages, pipers, military, family to video the service and to view the committal, but please inform the cemetery office at your earliest convenience, so these requests can be accommodated.
We will always try to accommodate requests relating to any cultural, religious or personal preferences.