Burial
The Burial Process
Interments are provided by Bass Coast Funeral Service at a cemetery of the deceased or families choosing. Your loved ones coffin or casket will be interred into the grave by family, friends or Bass Coast Funeral Service staff.
The family, or deceased may opt to have the full funeral service by the graveside. In this case, Bass Coast Funeral Service will provide all the necessary parts and equipment including seating, lectern, music playback etc. to ensure your loved one is sent off with respect and dignity.
Grave Preparation
After preparation of the grave, placed over the top will be either steel bars with webbed tapes to enable the pallbearers to hand lower the coffin or a lowering device (provided by cemetery or funeral director).
Our hearse will park as close as practical to the graveside. Your loved one will then carried to the grave by pallbearers; being people selected by family and friends or you may opt the funeral director and team to carry your loved one.
When it comes time to lower your loved one into the grave, Bass Coast Funeral Staff will assist by removing the floral sheath, providing gentle instruction and ensuring everything goes smoothly.
Following the lowering, family and friends may throw sand/dirt into the grave or flowers if available (we can supply these if required alternatively you may use flowers from the floral sheath).
A minimum of 4 strong and securely affixed handles capable of bearing the required weight. These handles are necessary to help carry and manoeuvre the coffin, and to feed the tapes through in the case of hand-lowering your loved one into the grave.
Once the family have departed, the cemetery will begin preparing to fill in the hole. If you would like, you are welcome to assist by shovelling some dirt back into the grave as is customary in some cultures and religions. If you would like to shovel, please advise us ahead of time to make the necessary arrangements.
Additional Information
Recommended minimum depth at first interment:
Single grave – grave depth 1,700mm
Double grave – grave depth 2,200mm
Triple grave – grave depth 2,700mm (if applicable)
Land allocation – 2400mm long by 1,200 mm wide
Grave as dug – 2,100mm long, 650 wide
Coffin / Casket 2,000mm long, 600mm wide, 400 high
Regulations require that a body be transported into & within a cemetery enclosed in a coffin, or other substantial receptacle. That is:
Clean & Hygienic.
Constructed of wood, metal or other substantial material.
From which neither offensive nor noxious emissions, nor matter from those remains or body parts will escape.
Human remains means bodily remains (a corpse of a human being or still born child) Cremated human remains & body parts.
Interment means the interring, burial or placing of human remains in a place of interment such as a grave, mausoleum crypt or niche wall.
A right of interment relates to a specific place of interment within a public cemetery.