A funeral parlour that is a beautiful old building is unique itself. Bower Funerals is hidden off a…read moreside street and there is parking available. You can't see the beautiful building until you walk off the path, and there it is. The condolence book was on the verandah for signing, tissue packs on offer and the walk to the room to celebrate a life was through the hallway. Perfect surrounds for a lovely send off. An usher had petals in a basket for placing on the coffin and then it was into an adjoining hallway which led into another room for refreshments. I didn't take photos but so wanted to. An amazing fireplace surrounded by brass artwork. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Coffee and tea was poured and staff even handed around trays of sandwiches and mini rolls. I don't know whether they do the catering themselves or have it brought in, but it was quality food. A mixture of biscuits too for those with a sweet tooth. A very nice venue for a final send off.

Funerals are often hard to organise due to the excess of emotion surrounding a death. Funeral homes…read morein general also have a dodgy reputation for praying on this emotion and up selling packages. After the untimely death of a friend's child, I accompanied them to this funeral home to make arrangements. I was able to step back and witness the professional service and appropriate manner of all the staff. I've unfortunately been to a number of funerals and while my first choice (should I have to organise one myself) would be Berry's on Magill Road, I would certainly consider Alfred James at Unley. You can call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Warning to anyone that's thinking of using Fulham Funerals DON'T DO IT…read more Fulham Funerals clearly do not care about families or the deceased. we sent them an email, they called us to tell us they would investigate and then didn't call back and sent us an email fobbing us off. Here is a summary of the email we sent. Anthony White the driver. got lost, when he arrived he parked at the wrong house. He then unloaded the trolley and bought it into the house backwards. He wasn't able to get the trolley into the room where my Nan's body was. He then provided me with a Death verification form with the wrong name written on it. I corrected this and told him the correct spelling. He assured me that he would make sure that was all corrected. - this was not. Anthony tried to move my Nan but was unable too. I, my brother, and my cousin were needed to help move my nans body to the hallway. Anthony was very arrogant and said he could do it several times before he realised he couldn't. Once we got Nan onto the trolley in the hallway. Anthony then faffed about trying to get her body into a bag, My brother had to catch my nans head as Anthony was being very rough with her body and didn't support her head at all. I had to hold one end of the trolley as it was about to topple over. This whole episode was very distressing on my Grandfather who had just lost his wife of 62 years. Anthony White, then returned on the Thursday to help with the planning of the service etc. And all the paperwork in his handwriting was written again with the wrong name when I asked him why it was still incorrect he told me that it was the office girls job not his to correct it. Anthony made it very clear during the conversation that we needed to pay in full before the funeral or we would get an additional $495 "admin fee" He said cardboard coffins are annoying as they get stuck in cremation flutes, this was extremely upsetting for my Grandfather who then left the room in tears as all he could think of was my Nan being stuck in the flutes. The next I heard from your offices was Tuesday the 23rd When Angela Drosd sent me the invoice for the funeral. She gave me 5 hours to pay the $5449.50 or I would incur the $495 fee, as the funeral was the following day. The invoice also still had the wrong name. It then took a further 2 phone calls and 2 hours to get the correct invoice. This was the 3rd occasion Fulham Funerals got my Nans name wrong. we were given less than 4 hours to find $5449.50 and pay in full is disgusting or we would have been charged what amounts to a late fee of $495. The funeral then took place on the 24th of April. The coffin arrived damaged on the right hand side and the name plate attached to the coffin had the date of death 16/03/19 A full month wrong. When questioned about it Anthony said "oh well not much we can do about it now" we made it very clear to Anthony on the 18/4 that Dates and Times where a big thing to my Nan and the fact it was incorrect was a massive blow to our family. These are things a family shouldn't need to worry about when they are trying to say a farewell to their loved ones. Overall I am deeply disappointed and thoroughly disgusted at the services my family has received. Your business prides itself on 30 years in the business and to have such a total stuff up with the important things like the person's name, and date of death. I find sickening.

No reviews for here yet - obviously a morbid place to review, but having just trusted Fulham…read moreFunerals with my lovely mum's service (not to mention everything they do behind the scenes) I feel obliged to leave some positive words. When my mum passed, there were no funeral arrangements in place, and being her only child it was up to me to take care of it all. Fulham Funerals never treated me any differently for being an unemployed 23 year old. They respected me, my mum, and the whole situation, and with great empathy helped me give my mum the best sendoff I could with what I had. They didn't try to push extra expenses my way and even advised me on what I could do myself rather than pay for. The service ended up being perfect and almost two months later I am still in touch with the funeral director, which just goes to show how above and beyond they are willing to go to be there for you in your time of need. And I seriously cannot thank them enough.

Peter and his amazing team at Frank J Siebert helped our family through the worst time in our…read morelives. Peter was so respectful of us as we discussed mum's service, he guided rather than pushed us to the decisions that needed to be made, without ever getting frustrated as we tried to make everything perfect, from the casket to the music. He recommended a wonderful celebrant who was similarly respectful and understanding of us wanting everything to be 'just so' for our beautiful mum. The printers he recommended did a wonderful job designing the custom bookmarks we envisaged and printed within a very fast time frame. On the day of the service all of our wishes were carried our perfectly, I cannot fault them. Thanks, Pete and team, from the bottom of my heart.

I was standing outside, wondering whether or not to go in, when a loud beep scared me half to…read moredeath. Had that beep scared me all the way to death, I suppose I was in the right place for it, really. I turned to see a car trying to pass through me where a park was awaiting it. I never found out whether it was a client or an employee that beeped me, but if it was the latter, that's a fairly good method of sending away potential customers. I was unperturbed, however. I went in. I'd never planned a funeral before, so I didn't know what to expect. What I didn't really expect (although, considering the subject, I perhaps should've) was for the place to look so drab and dreary. I happened to be walking by, but if that hadn't been the case, I would never have gone inside. The place looks terrible. It looks like a rundown dump. The fellow I was speaking to was very understanding of my unorthodox situation (which, I'm sure, the reader will forgive me for not detailing), but I ultimately decided to go elsewhere. Appearances are very important. I guess I was worried they directors might let any funeral plans they had a hand in go the way of their building.

There's pretty stiff competition when it comes to cemeteries in Adelaide and many might think,…read moreunless you have a loved one you are visiting, it is dead boring but I am here to write the review that will kill all your prior assumptions. That's right...I went there...now for the serious stuff... West Terrace Cemetery is the home to many a South Australian superstar - not your Australia's Got Talent type superstars either, like only the people who made this state great those measly 100-200 years ago. The wonderful thing about this place is that it is laid out in some kind of order so you can actually follow a walking trail past some of these well-known characters. It's the most un-obvious place to find a Walking Trail map (on a sign half way down the driveway once your in the cemetery), but you're lost without it. The volunteers of the West Tce Cemetery have even gone to the trouble of writing a little bit of history about the "talking points" of each of the graves you visit so you actually know who people like Henry Ayers and Catherine Helen Spence are... So if it is a sunny afternoon and you have a spare couple of hours to find out about the history of the state I would highly recommend a little wander through this place...it kills (sorry)!

West Terrace Cemetery is a veritable treasure trove of history - no pun intended. While most…read morecemeteries in South Australia only ever lease out their grave sites, West Terrace is the one exception and nearly all of the original plots remain untouched. The location for Adelaide's first cemetery was set out by William Light in his original plans for the city and as the colony's first and only burial site for many years, most of the state's early settlers were laid to rest there. Very early in its history the cemetery began its denominational divisions with separate sections for Catholic, Jewish, Church of England, Afghan, Druse and Islamic faiths that still exist today. It is now State Heritage Listed. There are some pretty ghoulish stories around from the early days of the cemetery's operation and a few dodgy characters who were employed to run the place but didn't take their jobs too seriously. If you'd like to know more about West Terrace's history, you can either take a self-guided tour or join in on one of the guided tours that happen on the first Tuesday of the month at 11.30am. Tours depart from the old curator's house and cost $5.50 per person

loved my partnerS graveside funeral,Colin went all out for me!very respectful!read more

An historic old spot alongside the Torrens and the bike track that is worth a few minutes of a look…read moreif you are out and about celebrating life on a beautiful day. Always a good idea to think of the way we treat death in our culture. Some interesting old designs on the headstones and some shady trees to sit under if you don't mind being close to the bike track as they are all on that side of the cemetery. There is a little museum you can stop to look in when it is open on Wednesdays, for more details give them a call on (08) 8296 1265 because there is a society that goes along with the historical study of the ... venue? Some people find these sorts of places creepy, I don't I find them fascinating. There is a lot to be discovered from old graveyards.

I'm a history buff and while it may sound weird, I like old cemeteries. They are literally full of…read morehistory. The Payneham Cemetery on Marian Road at Payneham South is a fascinating place where some of the state's early settlers were buried. Did you know that in South Australia the law states that we don't buy grave sites in perpetuity, they are only ever leased and for most of the historic graves at Payneham that lease was usually for 100 years. As a result of this, many of the oldest graves have been removed and the sites have been resold which is why there are so many new graves there now. What I like about this place is they've gone out of their way to preserve history by restoring the old headstones and keeping them on site. While some may think this is a completely maudlin practice, I think they deserve points for preserving what they can of history. Some of the historic headstones that have been preserved include Kate Boadecia Cocks, SA's first female Police Officer AND founder of the Kate Cocks Babies Home at Brighton. Also buried there is Edward Castres Gwynne who pioneered the South Australian Supreme Court and Capt Thomas Cowling, the manager of several historic SA mines. If you like a bit of history, go for a visit. Its fascinating.