Design

A Beautiful Modern Building

The site outside Oxted is a Green Belt location and we are acutely conscious that any building here must maintain the long-range views of the North Downs and enhance rather than detract from the open countryside.

It would be a modest larch-clad structure designed to look like a cluster of traditional farm buildings no more than two storeys high.

The buildings would sit in an area of native trees to shield the building from surrounding roads and a bridlepath to the north. Car parking would be tucked away behind the existing hedgerows which would be strengthened and enhanced.

There are existing views across the site, and these would be kept and improved by establishing wildflower meadows and trees. Mourners will gather in our large and comfortable waiting room. There will be no need to stand outside in the wind and rain waiting for a service. When the courtege arrives people would follow the coffin through into wooden clad ceremony hall with 120 seats.

In the ceremony hall, the coffin will rest in the centre of everyone’s view against the backdrop of a large picture window, framing views of a garden against the treeline. We will have a high-quality music system and the latest audio-visual equipment for film or photographic tributes. For the more traditional, we will have an organist. Our services are an hour long, so there will be little risk that mourners will feel rushed.

See Our CLYDE COAST CREMATORIUM
Landscape & Memorial Gardens

We will build on 16% of the site leaving most of it green. To the north east of the buildings will be our formal memorial gardens with an attractive series of walks and spaces for quiet contemplation and remembering. We would concentrate on gardens that bring colour, form and texture throughout the year. They would be a blaze of colour during the spring and summer with soft forms and textures during the winter.

Most of the site, though will be given over to nature. The land has been grazed by horses for many years and has little ecological merit. Surrounding it, though, is woodland and mature hedgerows that are home to bats and field-mice, badgers and deer. We have opportunity to ‘re-wild’ the site and provide a home once again to a wide variety of species. We will include areas of open parkland, wildflower meadow, woodland and hedgerows. Car parking and paths will be embedded into this landscape to minimise their presence and allow a variety of habitats to establish alongside the crematorium.