Funeral Directors in Royal Tunbridge Wells

Here at Abbey Funeral Services, we work hard to make sure your funeral arrangements are handled with sensitivity and dignity. We have become the leading funeral directors for the Tunbridge Wells and West Kent area, having started our family run funeral planning service back in 1983.

Through our 40 years of experience, we have been providing our expertise in:

We have built our reputation on supporting families when they need it most. During an often difficult times, we carefully consider your needs, and create a fully-personalised funeral service for each family. You can rest assured that when you choose Abbey Funerals to take care of all the funeral arrangements of your loved one, we will handle everything with the utmost care and professionalism.

Abbey Funeral Services is regulated by the Funeral Planning Authority, and we are a member of the Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors. We work to a recognised code of practice, ensuring you get only the highest quality service from us.

 

Supporting Families with Friends Together

Our services extend beyond funeral planning. We run a local West Kent charity, Friends Together. Through this charity, we offer bereavement therapists to help grieving people of any age in Royal Tunbridge Wells to navigate through their difficult loss. The charity supports families through the bereavement process when they need it most

Creations Tunbridge Wells

Our Cremation services in Royal Tunbridge Wells

Choosing cremation over a traditional burial is becoming increasingly popular with each passing year. This is because the ceremony holds many benefits over traditional burials:

  • The ashes can be shared

Many families who opt for cremation share the ashes of their loved one between themselves. This way, family members who live around the country or the world can pay respect without having to visit the burial site.

  • The ashes are portable

After cremation, the remains of you or your loved one can be brought anywhere around the world. Many people specify where they’d like their ashes to be spread. With cremation, you can fulfil your loved one’s final wish, or have specify to have your ashes spread in a place significant to your heart.

  • Cremation allows for creative ceremonies

There are a number of ways to hold a funeral ceremony, and you may not want to follow traditional ones. When you cremate with Abbey Funeral Services, your ashes, or the ashes of your loved one can be used to create art or jewellery. Through this, life after death can prevail through beautiful and sentimental objects.

  • Cremations are more cost effective than traditional burials

Caskets, coffins, embalming, burial vaults, and headstones make the cost of funerals add up quickly. With cremation, you can avoid all of these in exchange for a lovely urn.

  • Cremating is more environmentally friendly

Chemicals from the embalming process leak into the soil after burial, and the wood forested for caskets and coffins equates to over 4 million acres of forest cut down every year. Cremating avoids these environmental damages altogether. However, if you’d like the most environmentally friendly funeral service possible, consider our green funeral.

It’s important to take religion into account, though. To many people, honouring religious beliefs in death is as important as in life.

The three main religions that do not cremate are:

  • Islam
  • Judaism
  • Eastern Orthodox Church

On the other hand, many religions support or even encourage cremation over traditional burials:

  • Hinduism
  • Buddhism
  • Catholicism
  • Anglicanism
  • Methodism
  • Baptist Church
  • Jehovah’s Witness

We work closely with Kent & Sussex crematorium in Tunbridge Wells to ensure our customers receive the send-off that is right for their loved one.

Green Funerals Tunbridge Wells

Green funerals in Royal Tunbridge Wells

Green funerals are a beautiful and wholesome way to bury your loved one. The eco-friendly funeral service emphasises simplicity and environmental sustainability. The body is neither cremated nor embalmed with fluid. Rather, it is placed in a biodegradable coffin or shroud and rested without a concrete burial vault. This way, the grave site is allowed to return to nature.

Green funerals are becoming an increasingly popular choice for many reasons:

  • Conserving natural resources

Traditional burials use a significant amount of resources. In the UK, 10,000 tons of wood, steel, copper, and iron are used every year for caskets and coffins. Alongside this, over a million tons of concrete are needed for the burial vaults yearly. Green funerals take away the need for all these resources, making them environmentally friendly in that regard.

  • Preserving natural areas

Green funerals are excellent at preserving natural areas. The burial sites help to restore or conserve a natural environment with native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers, as well as providing food and shelter for birds and other creatures. Fertiliser, insecticides, and herbicides are not used in the most environmentally conscious green funerals. A green cemetery can play a crucial role in the preservation of natural environments.

  • Eliminating hazardous chemicals

Many people consider forgoing embalming as the most important aspect of green funerals. That’s because embalming fluid contains a lot of formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen and can contaminate and degrade the environment.

  • Lower costs

Green burials avoid expensive fancy caskets or coffins and burial vaults. Because of this, the price of green funerals can be more than £1,000 cheaper than their conventional counterparts.

  • Simplicity

The simplicity of green funerals is another one of their big appeals. People tend to like the unpretentiousness of them; the idea of resting the body in a plain, unadorned coffin can bring a sense of peace.

Abbey Funeral Service’s green funerals are the perfect way to make a burial environmentally friendly. Through this funeral service, you can help the death of a loved one bring new life in nature.

 

Funeral Planning Tunbridge Wells

Funeral Planning Services in Royal Tunbridge Wells

At Abbey Funeral Services, we partner with Ecclesiastical Planning Services to ensure your funeral is handled with the proper care needed. You can choose one of four funeral plans if you’d like:

  • The Abbey Unattended Funeral Plan
  • The Abbey Simple Plan
  • The Abbey Traditional Plan
  • The Abbey Traditional Plus Plan

Many people prefer our funeral plans to creating a custom funeral service with us. They hold two main benefits, which are:

1. Consideration for loved ones

Your thoughtfulness will alleviate your mourning family of the financial burden and any concerns they may have regarding your funeral arrangements at a difficult time. You also have the assurance that the preparations you specify, such as the style of funeral, the location, the music, the readings, and even the flowers, will be carried out just as you like. Planning ahead of time brings peace of mind to you and your loved ones.

2. Financial security

One of the primary reasons we advise you to purchase one of our funeral plans is that they give excellent financial protection for your money. For added peace of mind, all plan funds are maintained in whole life assurance policies. The prices of custom funerals tend to stack up quickly. You can avoid these unforeseen fees with our funeral plans.

 

Abbey Funeral Services in Royal Tunbridge Wells

Royal Tunbridge Wells is a lovely town in West Kent with a wonderful culture and history dating all the way back to the Iron Age. With over 15 churches and cathedrals in the Royal Tunbridge Wells area, we can provide our services in a number of locations for you and your family. At Abbey Funeral Services, we have a close relationship with the Tunbridge Wells Crematorium. The main churches most compatible with our funerals are:

  • The Parish Church of King Charles the Martyr
  • Barnabas Church
  • Brenchley Church
  • Mary the Virgin Church
  • Luke’s Church

 

Funeral FAQs

1. Why choose Abbey Funeral Services for Tunbridge Wells funeral?

At Abbey Funeral Services, we dedicate ourselves to you and your family. In our 40 years of experience, we’ve become well-respected leaders in the Tunbridge Wells community, as we always ensure your funeral is conducted with dignity and sensitivity.

Our family-run business’s husband-and-wife founders served as former Presidents of the Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, and the keys to our service have been passed on to their daughter.

Let our family care for yours by choosing Abbey Funeral Services for your funeral needs.

 

2. How much does a funeral cost in Royal Tunbridge Wells?

The prices of funerals vary significantly based on what you’d like to have. Service costs make up a large portion of funeral costs in Royal Tunbridge Wells, and they can range upwards of £2,000. Learn more about our prices here.

 

3. How much does cremation cost in Royal Tunbridge Wells?

Cremation is significantly less expensive than traditional burials. At Abbey Funeral Services, we offer a direct-to-cremator service for £1,800. We also provide unattended cremations for £2,450. The crematoriums we use are the Kent & Sussex Crematorium and the Vinters Park Crematorium in Maidstone.