11th February 2022

A Little More About Our Funeral Home In Woodbridge

With the cold dark mornings of February upon us, it is certainly nice to see the evenings finally starting to draw out. As horse owners, Andrew and I long for the glimpses of spring to emerge to bring a little sunshine and the depths of winter to be a distant memory for another year! Winter for us is 4am starts with stables to muck out, horses to be fed and taken to their fields and then the dogs to be walked, all before 7.30am! However, we really wouldn’t have it any other way!

We have had a couple of new additions to our family over the past few months in the form of Dobby, a nine-month-old Border Terrier who will be seen out and about in the Funeral home alongside Wizard and Merlin and Ron, an 8-year-old Suffolk Punch X Cob who is now best mates with Andrew’s Suffolk Punch Jim!

Having our horses on site where the Funeral home is located is definitely a big help day to day! Not only does it mean we can nip out of the door and see them whenever needed (or in my case occasionally popping out for “5 minutes” to check waters and indeed sneaking off for a quick ride, or a quick training session with Jim!) but it also means that families are more than welcome to meet the big lads! Jim in particular, although only 3 years old, often has his head through the Funeral Home door to greet families, and has been a wonderful comfort to them at a time when nothing but a cuddle from a Suffolk Punch will do. He is a superstar, and we hope that he will be superb in his future role in the years to come pulling a traditional hearse. For the moment we are concentrating on his training for this role and also looking forward to getting him out more this year on meet and greets with the public, something he certainly LOVES to do!!!!

We really do feel extremely privileged to live and work in this wonderful part of the country. Woodbridge is such a pretty area, no matter where you venture and at whatever time of the year you visit. We are often found walking along the vast beaches around the area with the dogs or we regularly take out the horses to the local forests for training, but not only that, the towns and villages are so steeped in history and so quaint that its such a pleasure to just walk around and immerse yourself in the quirkiness of the area.

Our Funeral Home is no exception to this quirkiness. We decided when looking for a premises to go a little unconventional in comparison to the so called ‘run of the mill’ high street Funeral Homes. We are both country/Suffolk people through and through and felt that our funeral home should really reflect this. Every single property we sought just didn’t have the ‘wow’ factor we were looking for, and to be honest, to this day I couldn’t tell you exactly what that was! However, upon entering a beautiful old barn one day by chance…. we just knew this was where Markham Funeral Service belonged!!!! The beauty of the building is the history behind it, our landlord is a 5th generation farmer where we are based, his family has been looking after the land here for a very very long time!!!

Upon renovating the barn, we tried our absolute best to keep the character of the building whilst still allowing us to provide absolute top of the range facilities for those that are in our care. You will notice our building is almost in two halves, one side being the homely country meeting areas for families to sit with us and have a cup of tea and the other half contains our on-site mortuary facilities. The building boasts beautiful oak beams throughout of which we have kept completely original albeit giving them a nice coat of varnish for protection and re painting the stunning black iron fixings. You will also notice….. many many big nails sticking out of the beams throughout- these were the original gamekeeper’s hooks that were used to hang pheasants on, that we felt need to stay.

Our on-site Chapel of Rest is a little intimate room where you are most welcome to sit with your loved one whenever you wish to. In our eyes this room is extremely special and you are welcome to spend as much time here as you wish. You may like to sit and listen to music, or write notes to your loved one, whatever you would like to do is fine with us. We have even had families take our dogs in for a little comfort when visiting a loved one.

You will notice dotted about the whole building, pretty hand painted pictures that were kindly created by Andrew’s Sister for us. Each picture is completely unique and boasts a quote that we feel is significant to the room in which it hangs. Andrew even has one in his workshop at the very back of the funeral home saying: ‘Although we cannot see you, you are always by our side’ to remind him of two of the most wonderful Funeral Directors who are sadly no longer with us, that were a huge influence guiding Andrew’s career and indeed were great friends to him and myself. Although they both passed away before we opened the Funeral Home, we know they would be proud and will always be around.

Our mortuary as we always explain is top of the range. There was absolutely no expense spared during the mortuary construction. Currently we have two different types of refrigeration with room for expansion should we ever wish to do this in the future. The mortuary is light and airy and a good working space to ensure that we are able to care for your loved one in the most dignified manner that is possible. All cosmetics (if required/requested) that we use are again the best available on the market. You are always most welcome for a visit to our premises including around our mortuary and we can talk you through exactly what we do, we feel it is so important to be open and honest at all times.

The most important thing to remember about Markham Funeral Home is….

THE KETTLE IS ALWAYS ON! Come and join us anytime and we would be glad to show you around.

If you would like some help please call us on 01728 747795 or email us here

How to find Markham Funeral Services:

Markham Funeral Service | Woodbridge | Suffolk