Burial options and services in Warrnambool
At Guyetts we offer traditional burials, eco-friendly burials or upright burials with a funeral service or essential care burial (direct burial) as per the family’s wishes. We also can provide religious, cultural or civil (non-religious) services.
Traditional burials
Locally we work with over 20 cemeteries doing traditional burials. Traditional burials are the preferred preference by families in the Warrnambool district.
We offer an extensive range of traditional coffins and caskets, which families have been able to choose for generations with families often choosing to go with the same coffin as their parents.
We source the majority of our coffins from an Australian coffin manufacturer in Ballarat and we have worked with them for generations.
Eco burials / green burials
Eco burials, also known as green burials, are environmentally sustainable funeral practices that allow the body to naturally return to the earth, in a biodegradable coffin, casket or shroud. These burials use biodegradable materials such as untreated timber, wicker or natural fibre shrouds and often take place in designated natural eco-friendly cemeteries. If preferred, these burials can take place in traditional cemeteries as well if families wish to have an eco-friendly coffin but wish for their loved one to be buried not in an eco-friendly cemetery.
Other key features of eco burials
- Biodegradable caskets / shrouds: Coffins, caskets and shrouds can be made of materials like untreated timber, wicker or natural fibre shrouds that naturally break down.
- No embalming: Avoids chemicals that can go into the soil.
- Natural burial grounds: Graves often do not have a headstone but are marked with a tree or shrub.
- Eco-friendly setting: Eco-friendly cemeteries are purposely built usually in a more bush setting with the intention of protecting the native flora and fauna.
Upright burials
Location: Kurweeton Road Cemetery, Corangamite Shire, Victoria, Australia
We are fortunate to be located near Kurweeton Road Cemetery (Derrinallum), the first ever and only vertical burial ground in Australia.
The Kurweeton Road Cemetery opened in 2010 and has a capacity for 30,000 eco burials. It is an environmentally friendly cemetery surrounded by farm land and nature.
Burials take place in a biodegradable shroud rather than a coffin.
Graves at Kurweeton Road Cemetery do not have headstones but names are listed on a memorial wall instead.
Key historical facts about burials in our region
- First settler burial Warrnambool, Agnes Ruttleton: The first white woman buried in the Warrnambool settlement was Agnes Ruttleton who died in the December of 1848. Agnes was buried at the Warrnambool foreshore near Flagstaff Hill where she lived with her husband, James. Her burial site locally is known as “Granny’s Grave”. The historic site of “Granny’s Grave” still exists today near the promenade overlooking the bay and is a popular walking spot. Agnes’s grave was marked by the Warrnambool City Council in 1904 although with the wrong name of “Mrs James Raddlestone” which in 2014 a plaque with her correct name was added by The Warrnambool City Council.
- Earlier local burials: Although Agnes is considered the first burial of a non-indigenous woman in the immediate settlement of Warrnambool, Jemima Allan, the wife of a local landholder John Allan, was buried in 1842 on an island in the Hopkins River.
- Warrnambool Cemetery: In the June of 1854 the Warrnambool Cemetery opened as an official burial site. Although earlier burials did occur in Warrnambool settlement before the cemetery’s opening.