headstones

[robinw]

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Do you actually get a choice? At our local churchyard they used to use sandstone, which doesn't weather terribly well, but now seem to use white or black marble only. The black seems to vary as to colour/texture, but that seems to be personal taste.

Sorry, that's not too helpful, is it.

Dont really know anything useful but my Mum has been able to get really nice plain stones engraved with simple beautiful lettering and no shininess, squiggly lines or designs etc, by local stonecutters who have been very responsive to her wishes. Presumably they would be in the yellow pages. hth

robinw, I don't know much about headstones specifically, but if it's a choice, granite will probably last the longest, but may be expensive because since it's so hard it's probably difficult to carve. White marble weathers nicely and is much softer to carve (ancient greek/roman statues). I suspect black marble would look grungy quite quickly.

We have black marble for my in-laws who passed away in '95 and '96 respectively. They still look 'good' now and are wearing quite well. They're also quite subtle. I'm not sure of the cost though (mind you I suspect the cost would be very different now, 8 years on anyway).