The Park Crematorium in Aldershot has been undergoing a major refurbishment since summer 2024. [1] Funeral services are temporarily taking place at the Redan Road cemetery chapel. The crematorium grounds are still open for visitors to pay their respects to loved ones.
The Park Crematorium is the crematorium for the town of Aldershot in Hampshire and surrounding districts, including North East Hampshire and parts of Surrey and Berkshire. It was designed by Frank Taylor, the Aldershot Borough Surveyor, and opened in July 1960. Today, it is operated and maintained by Rushmoor Borough Council. [2]
Located near Aldershot Park and between Aldershot Cricket Club and the Lido, in addition to the crematorium the facility also has 16 acres of grounds in the Gardens of Remembrance which was formerly Kiln Copse, a woodland at the edge of Aldershot Park. Here ashes can be interred. The hall holds about 80 people in addition to an organ. The complex was renovated in 1996–1997 and includes a memorial room containing Books of Remembrance. [3] [4]
After the Poet Laureate John Betjeman attended a service there he wrote the poem 'Aldershot Crematorium':
"Between the swimming-pool and cricket-ground
How straight the crematorium driveway lies!
And little puffs of smoke without a sound
Show what we loved dissolving in the skies,
Dear hands and feet and laughter-lighted face
And silk that hinted at the body's grace.
But no-one seems to know quite what to say
(Friends are so altered by the passing years):
"Well, anyhow, it's not so cold today"—
And thus we try to dissipate our fears.
'I am the Resurrection and the Life':
Strong, deep and painful, doubt inserts the knife." [5] [6] [7]
