Memoria South Oxford Crematorium & Memorial Park Reviews 

Reply from Memoria South Oxford Crematorium & Memorial Park

Oct 24, 2019

Dear Mr King,

Thank you for your review, your feedback is very welcome and your concerns are duly noted and as way of response to your comments I thought I'd explain the reasons why we do things slightly differently than perhaps people have been used to seeing at other crematoria over the years.

We feel those same reasons are why this facility has been voted Crematorium of the Year by the Good Funeral Guide and also why 7 of the top 10 crematoria in the country are operated by Memoria.

Our Crematorium seats over 100 in the chapel and has room for over 200 in the building, both of these figures are nearly double what the average number of attendees are at UK funeral service. We also provide over 100 parking spaces which at an average of 2.5 people sharing a vehicle to a funeral is also ample. When building new crematoria, the size of the building is restricted itself by planning regulations which simply do not allow new crematoria to be built over sized in order to facilitate the less than 2% of funeral services that exceed an attendance of over 250 people.

South Oxfordshire Memorial Park (unlike the vast majority of crematoria in the UK) has been deliberately designed to not have a waiting area. This is a conscious decision taken after lots of consideration because we felt it is not suitable or dignified to have a family who are holding a funeral service, interrupted by mourners from a following funeral service making their way into a waiting area, equally I am sure you will agree it is not comfortable for the family attending a service to feel like they are intruding on a service prior to the one they are attending.

Instead we brought in a new option, a different way of doing things and one which allows 1-hour service times, giving each and every family sole access to our crematorium during their service which in turn allows each family to feel like they are not part of the tragic conveyor belt of grief which is often witnessed at some other crematoria. In those instances, families historically arrive at a crematorium to witness the previous service leaving and themselves leave only to walk into the following service waiting outside where they experience that awkward feeling of seeing vast amounts of unfamiliar faces at a time they are often overwhelmed with grief.

We display a sign at the entrance of our crematorium to instruct those attending services not to enter the grounds less than 10 minutes prior to the service for the sole reason to allow all users complete and uninterrupted privacy, we advise families who arrive early to perhaps grab a cup of tea or a bite to eat nearby and offer reductions on those services with partnered organisations. This ensures that the rules which may slightly inconvenience those arriving from afar are the same rules which allow immediate family privacy and time to grieve as they leave the crematorium.

We are conscious that whilst this award winning approach is undoubtedly a better and more dignified way to conduct funerals, it may be a fairly new concept to people who have always followed the method mentioned above. To this end we are spreading the message as fast as we possibly can to funeral directors, in local media, social media and through events at our crematoria such as our annual crematorium open day.

I hope this goes some way to explain the thought behind our decisions but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Assuring you of our most courteous attention at all times.

Paul Reed