As a sculptor working in stone, I spend a lot of time looking at carvings in churches and Cathedrals and try to continually expand my understanding of sculpture both old and new. It is from this research, mixed with my own experience and…

We were contacted by Kim as she was looking for an urn to hold the ashes of her beloved Dalmatian. She really liked our candle urns, but wanted a different lid and a specific size to hold the correct amount of ashes. First of all we did a few quick sketches to show...

Creativity can make the most meaningful Memorials   I love the positivity of a new year and the feeling of a fresh start. The weight of the past months disappears and I have a burst of enthusiasm and an urge to try new things. It's a great time of year for me to...

What a Pleasure to Design a Sculpture for Karen in Memory of her Dad   We are lucky enough to meet some wonderful people through Elysium Memorials. Kate has often felt deeply moved and humbled by their stories and honesty and kindness. This was certainly true when...

Designing and Making a Garden Urn   When families or friends lose a loved one and receive the ashes from the funeral director or crematorium, it can take a long time to decide what to do with them, it is a big decision to make! Do they scatter them or keep them?...

Do You have any Heirlooms?   A couple of weeks ago I started a Facebook group THE MUSEUM OF US inviting people to join and post on their treasured heirloom objects and the stories behind them. I've been amazed with how it has taken off and the wonderful array of...

Getting to Know You How can a meaningful memorial be made without having a sense of the person it is supposed to represent? This is our mantra at Elysium. When a client contacts us, we treat every enquiry as a fresh project and as an individual. Some prefer to...

We often get asked to help clients choose a line of poetry for their memorials. Finding something that perfectly illustrates their thoughts about a loved one is a tricky job, but when you find the right thing, poetry has the ability to somehow express intense emotion...

I think it has been since my early childhood, looking through the windows of Playschool on tv that I have been obsessed with how things are made. The sweet factory through the round window, or milk bottles being blown through the square, I loved watching them. Elysium...

As well as running Elysium, founder Kate Semple is a sculptor and also teaches stone carving at her studio. She has just launched a new website for her courses, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to show what else we get up to. Stone carving can be a great...

I have been enjoying helping to design a war memorial for a small village in Somerset, this has got me looking at how different towns mark the lives of soldiers lost locally. When visiting relatives in Burbage, Leicestershire, I noticed they had plaques on the houses...

When I visit my elderly parents the thing we all have to gather round the telly for as their favourite must watch is The Repair Shop. People bring their battered heirlooms, most of them of very little monetary value, but with enormous sentimental value, to be lovingly...

Elysium Urns for Cremation Ashes Nobody wants to buy an urn, it's an object we wish didn't have to exist, but storing the ashes of a loved one is something most of us will have to face some time. There is an endless range of urns on offer from around the world made...

We are lucky enough at Elysium to have the wonderful John Rowlands Pritchard to design and hand engrave inscriptions on to glass, the results are truly beautiful. Please take a look at these short videos of work he's done for us. John is an incredibly talented chap...

We're so excited at Elysium to be launching our new website! We have been working with a brilliant young designer Jack Caslake from cazdesign.co , who has done a great job of updating the site and making it much more user friendly. He's been a joy to deal with and...

We’d like to introduce you to the artists involved in making Elysium’s bespoke memorials properly, so have decided to do a blog about each of them, starting with Kate Semple, sculptor and founder of the business. Kate’s working life has been spent exploring the joy of...

Headstones are often made from Granite imported from the other side of the world. They come into the UK ready shaped from a factory in the Far East, the work of a monumental mason only being to sandblast the inscription and fixing it in the cemetery. Where is the...

The thing that brings me more pleasure than anything when making memorials for people, is the symbolic significance they hold. Whether it is an urn for ashes or a garden sculpture, I try to imbue the work symbolically with the essence of the person it represents. This...

I was interested to hear on the news this morning an article about The National Trust complaining of memorial benches cluttering up beauty spots and making them feel like cemeteries. I can see both sides of this argument. Favourite holiday or walking places are very...

Personalised art to remember lost loved onesThe UK's death rate is projected to rise over the coming years as the baby boomer generation begins to disappear. Almost half of England's cemeteries could run out of space within the next two decades, a recent BBC survey...