Memorial QR codes
A life is more than a name and two dates
A memorial QR code turns a few inches of stone into everything you would want to say. One scan with a phone opens their photographs, their voice, their stories — kept safe for the people who come after you.
See the plaquesSee a real memorial
Handmade in Padiham, Lancashire · No app · No subscription
- No appany phone camera opens it
- One paymentno subscription, ever
- Permanentthe address never changes
- UK madehandmade and hand-checked
The idea
What a memorial QR code actually is
A memorial QR code is a small square pattern — the same kind of code you see on a restaurant menu or a parcel label — that has been given one job: to open a page about one person. It is engraved into a plaque, cut into stone, or printed onto a keepsake. Somebody standing at the graveside points their phone at it, and the memorial opens on the screen in their hand.
What makes it worth doing is the gap it closes. A headstone has room for a name, two dates and perhaps a line of verse. That is all the space masonry allows, and it has always been that way. But a person is not a name and two dates. They are the way they laughed, the garden they kept, the forty years they gave to a job, the songs at the wedding, the voice on an old video that a grandchild has never heard. A memorial QR code gives all of that somewhere to live, a few inches from where they are buried.
It is not a replacement for a headstone. The stone still carries the name, and still says what it has always said. The code simply adds a door beside it.
Why families choose one
What it changes
Every photograph, not one
A ceramic photo on a stone holds a single image. A memorial page holds the whole album — childhood, weddings, holidays, the ordinary afternoons that turn out to matter most.
Grandchildren meet them
Children born after someone dies grow up with a name on a stone. With a page, they can hear the voice, see the face move, and read what the family wrote down while it was still fresh.
Distance stops mattering
Family who live too far to visit the grave can still visit the memorial. The same link that the code opens can be sent by message or email to anyone, anywhere.
It can grow
A stone is finished the day it is set. A memorial page is never finished — a new photograph found in a drawer, a story remembered at a wake, an anniversary note. It can be added any time.
From ordering to the first scan
- 1
You choose the plaque and tell us about them
Pick the plaque that suits where it is going, then give us the name, the dates, the wording you would like and a photograph. Nothing is made until you are happy with it.
- 2
We send you a proof
You see exactly how the plaque will look before anything is produced — layout, wording, spelling, the position of the code. Changes at this stage cost nothing.
- 3
The plaque is made and the code is linked
Once you approve the proof, the plaque is made by hand and checked by hand. The code is activated and permanently tied to that one memorial page.
- 4
The family builds the page
Instructions arrive by email. Upload photographs, videos and the stories worth keeping, in your own time. If you would rather not, we can build it for you.
The page behind the code
What a visitor actually sees
The code is only the doorway. What matters is the page it opens, and that page is built to be read standing up, outdoors, on a phone, by someone who may be upset.
There is a photograph at the top and the name beneath it. Below that sits whatever the family has chosen to put there: the story of a life in as many words as they want, a gallery of photographs, videos, and the small details that never fit on a stone.
- Photographs and videos, as many as you like
- Their story, in the family’s own words
- Dates, places and the things they were known for
- A page that works on any phone, with no app
The stone says who is buried here. The code says who they were.
Durability
Will it still work in thirty years?
This is the question we are asked most, and it is the right question to ask about anything fixed to a grave. There are two halves to the answer, and they are different.
The code itself is just a pattern. It does not expire, contain a battery, or need a signal to stay valid. As long as it is still legible, a phone will still read it. QR codes also carry error correction, which is why a scuffed or partly weathered code usually still scans.
The address behind it is the half that needs looking after, and that is our responsibility rather than yours. Your code points at an address we control permanently. If anything about the system behind it ever changes, the address stays the same and keeps pointing at the right memorial. That is why we never print a code that points at a third-party site we do not own.
A stone on its own, and a stone with a code
A traditional memorial
- A name, two dates and perhaps a line of verse
- One photograph, if the stone allows it
- Finished the day it is set
- Only read by someone standing there
- Letter cutting to change anything
The same memorial with a QR code
- Everything the stone says, unchanged
- The whole album, and video as well
- Added to whenever you want
- Can be shared with family anywhere
- Nothing on the stone ever has to be altered
Where they go
Not only on graves
Most of our plaques go to a graveside, but a good number do not. A memorial QR code works anywhere a person is remembered, and families are often surprised by how many of those places there are.
Memorial benches are the most common after graves — a small plaque on the backrest, so anyone who sits down can find out who the bench is for. Crematorium niches and memorial walls are another, where the space allowed is often tiny and a code is the only way to say more. Trees and garden markers suit families who scattered ashes somewhere that means something. And a fair number of plaques never leave the house at all: they sit on a shelf, a windowsill or a bedside table, where someone can look at them every day.
If you are not sure a code is allowed where you want to put it, that is worth checking before you order rather than after. Churchyards and local authority cemeteries each have their own rules about what may be fixed to a memorial, and they vary a great deal between one parish and the next.
What it costs
Prices, plainly
Memorial plaques
From £100
A handmade plaque with the photograph, wording and a unique QR code, with a memorial page included. Several sizes and finishes.
Headstone plaque
£125
The rectangle plaque made to fix to a headstone, bench or wall, in two sizes, supplied with stainless fixings.
Code for engraving
£95
For stonemasons: the QR code supplied as an engraving file, to cut straight into the stone as part of your own design.
Every plaque includes the memorial page and the QR code that opens it. There is no subscription and no renewal fee. If you would rather not build the page yourself, we can create it for you for £40.
Common questions
What is a memorial QR code?
It is a small square code, engraved or printed onto a plaque or headstone, that opens a web page about the person it remembers. Point a phone camera at it and the memorial page opens — photographs, videos, stories and dates, all in one place.
Do you need an app to scan a memorial QR code?
No. Every smartphone made in roughly the last eight years reads QR codes with the standard camera app. There is nothing for a visitor to download, sign up for or pay.
Is there a monthly fee?
No. You pay once for the plaque and the memorial page that goes with it. There is no subscription and no renewal.
What happens if nobody updates the page?
Nothing. The page stays exactly as it was left and keeps working. Updating is something you can do, not something you have to do.
Can the memorial page be kept private?
Yes. A page can be public, hidden from search engines, or protected with a password you share only with family.
Where can a memorial QR code be placed?
On a headstone or grave plaque, a memorial bench, a tree or garden marker, a niche in a crematorium wall, a keepsake at home, or inside an order of service.
More on memorial QR codes
Start with the plaque, take your time with the rest
There is no rush on the memorial page. Order the plaque when you are ready, and build the page over weeks or months — or let us build it for you from the photographs and memories you send.