Information for Funeral Directors

Funerals would normally be conducted Rev’d Paul Hamilton or St Nicholas Parish Lay reader, Mrs Pat Horton. Funerals are also available in St Stephen's (East Ham estate) so please ensure people have this choice.

We have another lay reader and priest in secular employment who are licensed to conduct funerals but whose availability is limited.

Services in Church

St Nicholas' church yard has a limited number of spaces for people who live or die in the parish.

A great deal of money has been spent levelling the church yard and we would ask you to adhere to our burial instructions   which will enable us to keep the church yard in good order.

We are very keen and willing to have services at St Nicholas’s church. We prefer services at St Nicholas’ to be after 1pm if possible due to car parking clashes with our pre school. We are able to accommodate earlier in the day by arrangement if required.

Please ensure that the cortège parks at the lynch gate at the front of the churchyard. Pulling into the car park creates enormous congestion problems, is inappropriately close to our pre school and does not carry the same dignity as entering church from the front.

We do not keep trestles in church so we are always grateful to use yours. Please ensure we know if you need us to acquire some or yours are unavailable for any reason.

Garden of Remembrance

The garden of remembrance is available for the burial of cremated remains upon request. Due to limited space we restrict this to the parish of St Nicholas’ only. Ashes are poured into ground rather than buried in containers; however we will consider allowing the burial of bio degradable containers if pouring is particularly distressing for families, but this must be by prior arrangement.

Parish Boundaries

We are grateful for the opportunity to minister to all the bereaved people within our parishes irrespective of religious affiliation or none. If people request another Christian minister we would still value the opportunity to pray for families and we would be grateful to receive contact information if they are willing for us to have it. This also gives us the opportunity to invite people to our annual All Souls service whether we’ve conducted the funeral or not.

If you are unable to cover services from another parish then please feel free to contact us and we will do our best to help.

Time Off

Please note that The Rector’s day off is Monday, other members of the ministry team are available at varying times.

Payment

In order to keep things simple please make all cheques payable to ‘Paul Hamilton Church Fees Account’. The necessary four way split between the PCC, Diocese, minister’s travelling expenses and admin/secretary will then be made. We prefer to receive fees at each service rather than monthly.

When services are taking place in church please bring organist and verger fees as cash in separate envelopes. The same applies for the digger’s fee and admin fee during the burial of cremated remains.

Please refer to the Church Fees page for specific costs.

Headstones

Headstone erection and inscription is done via the normal CR1 form. We follow the Diocesan Guidelines with regards to size, design and wording.