A bespoke product from Wilmat is helping to solve a grave problem as the UK runs out of space for new cemeteries.
We’ve developed lifting equipment for a company that’s behind a new community mausoleum.
Mausoleum Management contracted us to design an electrically operated powered hoist to lift and manoeuvre coffins into position in the individual burial chambers.
According to Steve Sheridan, finance director at Mausoleum Management, which operates the community mausoleum at Selbourne Avenue Cemetery in Bletchley, lifting equipment currently on the market wasn’t suitable because we need to be able to raise the coffins to a height of 2.1 metres.
The new power lift is based on an established design and can be operated by a single mausoleum worker, enabling easy and accurate positioning of coffins.
To do this we could draw on our experience of working with funeral and mortuary professionals to develop specialist equipment.
Mausoleums date back to the 4th Century BC and are popular in the United States, Australia and Italy, particularly among Catholic communities. In the UK they tend to be private, family-owned facilities and even the few community mausoleums are relatively small concerns.
However, the shortage of burial plots has already led to a rise in the development of private cemeteries and woodland burial sites and there is growing interest in community mausoleums as an alternative to traditional grave burial.