Exploring the Canadian Memorial at Bramshott Common

I am by no means a historian. However, I have a passion for the Military history for the areas around Bordon and Whitehill where I grew up.

When my Mum & Dad moved from Guildford to the Red House caravan site in Hogmoor Road in 1963 the Garrisons of Aldershot and Bordon and many others in the surrounding area were still extremely active.

In the war years of 1914-18 and again during the 1939-45 period, Canada sent many troops to help the war efforts. Aldershot & Bordon became host to the Canadians but Bramshott Common became a major site.

Erie, Huron, Superior and Ontario Camps housed the troops and Canadian Nurses attended wounded and sick soldiers at No.15 Canadian General Hospital at Bramshott..

If the 1914-18 war was not enough to ravage the ranks of these brave soldiers, influenza made sure it did. 318 men and women including some nurses succumbed to the Spanish Flu epidemic.

15 million people died during the 4 years of the first world war, 45 million people died in less than a third of that time due to the influenza pandemic.

I took Henry and a small group of his friends to Longmoor Camp for a walk round to play hide and seek and view what remains of the fascinating Military history including the famous LMR which trained the world in Military Train deployment.

But afterwards, as I had done so many times in the past I visited the Canadian Military Memorial to the dead of the 1914-18 war on Bramshott Common. 219 Maple trees were planted representing one tree for every two deaths at Bramshott and Brookwood near Woking. There is a further burial of Canadian servicemen at Grayshott too.

Sadly, in their wisdom the Highways agency decided the original memorial was too close to the road and dangerous so the mature Maple trees were felled. A new planting of Maples was carried out some 30 metres or so away from the road back in the late 80's.

In the Autumn these trees are magnificent and I find it immensely sobering when I see them. After the visit, I took Henners, his cousin Will and friends Adam and Glenn to see the Military section at the nearby Cemetery behind St Mary's Church, Bramshott.

The boys took nearly 40 minutes in the gathering gloom to walk around the graves and I think that they must have read every gravestone.

Ironically Will was born on the 11th of November. I guess thats a date we will never forget!

Very little remains of the old camps. If you take a walk there you can see the old barrack roads and other trees planted along the way. Some concrete standings are still visible in the undergrowth but where once brave men marched only rabbits roam.

Before I sold our business I was asked by the War Graves Commision to carry out works in their South East region of which part of it covered the Bordon Military Cemetery, the Military section of Headley churchyard and Grayshott Churchyard. I remember on my visits to measure and estimate for the work I wandered amongst the graves reading the tributes to the fallen. I read many tributes and there are many powerful and poignant sayings but none more apt than :

'For Our Tomorrow, They Gave their Today'

Photo of a burial at Bramshott during the first World War reproduced with kind permission of the National Archives of Canada

Resource websites and books for Canadians in Hampshire.

Liphook, Bramshott and the Canadians, Canadian WW1 graves in Bramshott Churchyard, The story of a typical Canadian soldier who passed through Bramshott on the way to France, Jack Chapman