A Melksham family, looking after Melksham families
Independent funeral directors on the Market Place since 1961. Three generations, one office, and the same people from the first phone call to long after the funeral.
The telephone number appears three times above the fold: in the brand strip, in the hero, and as a fixed bar on mobile. Every instance is a tel: link. A grieving visitor at 2am should never have to scroll or search to make a call.
What brings you here today
Most funeral director homepages open with a paragraph about the firm. This one opens by asking the visitor what they need and routing them in one tap. Four intents, four destinations, no persuasion. It is the difference between a brochure and a tool.
What to do first
If you are reading this in the middle of the night, the short answer is to ring us. Nothing else has to happen tonight.
If it happened in hospital
The hospital will care for your relative until you have chosen a funeral director, and nobody should be pressing you to decide that today. A doctor completes the medical certificate, a medical examiner reviews it independently and sends it straight to the register office. Tell the bereavement office you have chosen us, and ring us. We will arrange the collection with them.
If it happened at home
Ring the GP surgery first, or 111 out of hours. A doctor or paramedic must attend and confirm the death. After that, ring us at any hour and we will come out. You do not need to be ready straight away; if you want time in the house first, say so.
If the coroner is involved
This is routine when a death was sudden or unexpected, and it does not mean anything has gone wrong. Your relative goes to the coroner's mortuary and we cannot collect until they are released. Ring us anyway. We deal with the coroner's office regularly and can begin everything that does not depend on the release.
Registering the death
You have five days from when the register office receives the certificate, not from the date of death. Make an appointment at Chippenham or Trowbridge register office. They will give you a green form, which is the one we need. If you would rather we came with you, we will.
This is the highest-value page section on any funeral director website. It answers the highest-intent search in the sector, "what to do when someone dies", and it is structured by where the death happened, because that is the only fact the reader is certain of.
Types of funeral
Two separate questions. What happens on the day, and what sort of service it needs to be.
What happens on the day
Attended cremation
A service at the crematorium with family and friends present. You choose the day, the time, the coffin and who leads it. Ashes returned to you within a few working days.
Unattended cremation
The cremation takes place early in the day with nobody present. No service and no cars. Many families then hold their own gathering once the ashes are home.
Burial
A service at the church, the chapel or the graveside. We will check availability and the deeds on an existing family grave before anything is promised.
Natural burial
Burial in a meadow or woodland site in a coffin that breaks down naturally. No headstone. We carry willow, wicker and cardboard coffins and we do not embalm.
The sort of service it needs to be
These are the funerals we are asked for most often. We have written about the ones we actually arrange. If what you need is not listed, ring and ask. The answer is very often yes.
Church and chapel services
We work regularly with the clergy at St Michael's and the Methodist church, and with the Catholic parish at Trowbridge. We know their diaries, which means a date is usually agreed in one phone call rather than three.
Non-religious services
Around half the funerals we arrange are now led by a celebrant. You can still have a hymn or a prayer in an otherwise non-religious service. We work with three celebrants locally and will suggest the one who suits your family.
Children's funerals
We make no charge for our services for a child under 18, including babies lost before birth. Cremation and burial fees are waived under the Children's Funeral Fund. In almost every case there is nothing at all to pay.
Veterans' funerals
A Union flag or regimental flag, a standard bearer from the Melksham branch of the Royal British Legion, and a bugler for the Last Post. We check as a matter of course whether a service charity will contribute.
Repatriation
Bringing someone home from abroad, or sending them out. Being straight with you: it takes two to five weeks and there is embassy paperwork we cannot hurry. Deal with the travel insurer before instructing anybody.
Faiths we are less often asked for
We are one office in a small Wiltshire town and would rather tell you the truth. We can collect without embalming, turn a funeral round within 24 hours, and provide a room for family washing. We do not have a member of staff of your faith and will not pretend otherwise.
Each of these is a page in a full build, not a card. Terms like "veterans funeral directors Melksham" and "natural burial Wiltshire" are high-intent and almost uncontested locally. The rule is that a page is only built for something the firm has genuinely done, written from its own operations rather than from research.
One office, and we intend to keep it that way
Ashvale was started in 1961 by Edward Ashe, working from a joiner's shop behind the Market Place. Three generations on, we are still on the Market Place and the business is still owned by the family.
We have had offers to sell. We have not taken them, and we are not going to. When you ring us you get one of us, not a call centre in another county, and the person who sits with you to arrange the funeral is the person who will be there on the day.
We have never wanted to be the biggest firm in west Wiltshire. We have wanted to be the one people recommend to their neighbours.
Nothing is handed to a stranger
A good deal of what a funeral director does can be bought in. We have chosen to keep this work here, so the same people look after your relative throughout.
Our own chapel
Two visiting rooms at the Market Place, with level access from the street. Visits by arrangement, including evenings and Sundays, at no charge.
Our own vehicles
One hearse and two limousines, kept and driven by us. We do not hire in on the day.
Our own preparation
A qualified embalmer on the staff. Your relative does not leave the building once they are in our care.
Our own bearers
The people who carry your relative work for us and have done for years. They are not agency staff.
Reviews from the families we have looked after
Every review below is a verified Google review, shown exactly as it was written.
They sat with us for two hours and never once looked at the clock. Every cost was explained before we agreed to anything, and the final bill was exactly what we had been told… read more
They rang me the week after to see how I was getting on. I did not expect that at all. Nothing about the whole thing felt like a transaction… read more
We had a small budget and were never once made to feel awkward about it. They went through the price list line by line and found us a way to do it properly… read more
Dad had asked for something very simple and they did not once try to talk us into more. That mattered more than they probably realise… read more
Google's own styling is kept exactly as it is: the logo, the gold stars, the avatar circles, the dates. Its familiarity is the point. Reviews restyled to match a site's palette read as testimonials the firm wrote itself, which is the opposite of what they are for.
What a funeral costs with us
Asking about money after a death feels wrong to a lot of people. It is not, and you should never have to ask twice.
A funeral bill is three separate things
One: our own charges
Making the arrangements, the paperwork, caring for your relative, the coffin, the hearse and our people on the day. This is the part we set, and the part you can compare between firms.
Two: other people's fees
The crematorium, the cemetery or churchyard, and the minister or celebrant. Set by them, not by us. They appear on our invoice because we pay them for you, at cost, and we add nothing.
Three: anything you add
A different coffin, limousines, flowers, orders of service, a notice in the paper. Every one is optional. A funeral with none of them is still a proper funeral.
Three ways of doing it
Attended funeral
from £2,795
Our full service. Your own date and time, any coffin from our range, cars if you want them, the service wherever you would like it. Nothing is restricted.
Simple attended funeral
£2,150
The same care with the costliest parts removed. The crematorium sets the day and time, it is our simple veneer coffin, there is a hearse but no limousine, and the service is at the crematorium.
Unattended cremation
£1,295
The cremation takes place early in the morning with nobody present, and the ashes come back to you. The crematorium fee is included. There is nothing further to pay.
Standardised Price List
All funeral directors are legally required to publish this price list for a standardised set of products and services. This is to help you think through your options and make choices, and to let you compare prices between different funeral directors, because prices can vary.
Prices correct from 1 January 2026.
| What this includes | Price |
|---|---|
| A funeral where family or friends attend the burial or cremation. Taking care of all necessary legal and administrative arrangements. | Included |
| Collecting and transporting the deceased person from the place of death, normally within 15 miles of our premises, into our care. | Included |
| Care of the deceased person before the funeral in appropriate facilities, in our refrigerated chapel of rest. | Included |
| Providing a suitable coffin, a simple veneer one. | Included |
| At a date and time you agree with us, taking the deceased person direct to the agreed cemetery or crematorium, normally within 20 miles of our premises, in a hearse. | Included |
| Total price of our attended funeral | £2,795 |
In addition you will usually need to pay a cremation fee or burial fees, and a minister or celebrant.
| Fee | Price |
|---|---|
| Cremation fee, Semington Vale Crematorium | £965 |
| Burial fee, Melksham Cemetery, new grave (interment £1,105 plus exclusive right of burial £1,340) | £2,445 |
| Burial fee, Melksham Cemetery, reopening an existing grave | £1,105 |
| Burial fee, parish churchyard, set by the Church of England | from £395 |
| Minister or celebrant fee | £220 |
| Unattended cremation, all fees included | £1,295 |
Burial fees are the charge for digging and closing a new grave, or reopening and closing an existing one. For a new grave you also pay for the plot, and where a memorial is in place there may be a removal and replacement fee.
There are no longer any doctors' fees for a cremation in England and Wales. The two medical certificates that used to be required were removed in September 2024 when the medical examiner system began. If anybody quotes you a doctors' fee, ask them about it.
Third-party fees correct as at 1 January 2026 and usually change each April. We will tell you the current figure when we arrange.
Our interests and donations
Ashvale is owned entirely by the Ashe family. We do not own, and are not owned by, any crematorium, cemetery, burial ground or funeral plan provider. We receive no commission or referral fee from any hospital, hospice, care home, coroner's office or police force, and we pay none of them for referrals.
In the year to 31 December 2025 we donated £900 to Dorothy House Hospice Care, £400 to the Melksham Community Bus and £250 to Melksham Town Football Club. None was made in exchange for referrals.
If you are worried about paying
Tell us at the start rather than at the end. We have this conversation most weeks and there is nothing embarrassing about it.
You may be able to claim a Funeral Expenses Payment if you receive certain benefits. The estate normally pays, and banks will often release money to settle a funeral bill before probate. Our invoice is due 30 days after the funeral, and if that is going to be difficult, ring and say so. We would far rather agree something with you than send a letter.
You will have a written estimate before anything is confirmed, and the final invoice will match it unless you have asked us to change something.
Four separate obligations are met in this one section: the Standardised Price List in the prescribed format and wording, within one click of the homepage; the additional options and third-party fees; the disclosure of business interests and donations to referral sources; and a stated date from which prices apply. The list is published both as a readable page and as a PDF, because a family on a phone at midnight will not download an attachment.
Telling people is one of the hardest jobs
For every family we look after we will put a notice on this website, free of charge. It carries the date, time and place of the service, what the family has asked regarding flowers and donations, and a space for people to leave a message.
You get a link you can send to whoever you like. It saves a great many phone calls at a time when you may not want to make them.
Notices are published only when the family asks, and we will take one down the same day if you change your mind.
Funeral notices drive more inbound traffic than everything else on a funeral director's website combined, because every mourner searching the deceased's name lands on the firm's own domain. Firms that outsource notices to a third-party platform hand that traffic away permanently. This is the single strongest argument for building them natively.
14 Market Place, Melksham
01225 000000- Address
- 14 Market Place
Melksham
Wiltshire SN12 6EX - Office hours
- Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Saturday, 9am to 1pm - Out of hours
- The same number, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It rings through to one of the family at home.
- Parking and access
- Free parking on the Market Place. Level access from the street and a ground-floor arrangement room.
- Areas we serve
- Melksham, Bowerhill, Atworth, Shaw, Seend, Semington, Holt, Broughton Gifford, Steeple Ashton, and into Trowbridge, Devizes and Chippenham.
The villages are named in prose rather than buried in a dropdown, and the address, phone number and opening hours match the firm's Google Business Profile character for character. Inconsistency between the two is the most common and most damaging local search fault we find.
- SAIF, the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors
- British Institute of Embalmers
- The Good Funeral Guide
- Melksham Chamber of Commerce