'Svalbard' Waiting Area

A new specially designed waiting area has just opened in Autumn 2010 at Roucan Loch.  Designed to complement the existing Scandinavian-style crematorium, the Viking longhouse-style building is called Svalbard, after the island archipelago north of Norway, to tie in with the "natural place" ethos of Roucan Loch.  The waiting room was built to a unique design by Charles Gulland, who runs Allround Buildings.

Svalbard is the summer home of the 'barnies' which winter here on the Solway and which often visit Roucan Loch.  The geese theme continues inside the waiting room, with the poem "Something Told The Wild Geese" by Rachel Field, on a wooden plaque.  The waiting room has taken a few years to get just right, but we feel it complements the area and will provide a bright and welcoming place for people needing a coffee after a long journey.

Many people arrive up to an hour  before a service, so it will a very practical building - and also a shelter from the strong winds, rain and snow of winter.

'Svalbard' means a land at the end of the ocean, in old Norse, and we feel that could bring comfort to a lot of people who have lost someone.

The flying geese symbolise geese flying away and in the depths of a Scottish winter, it can be comforting that Svalbard is that summer home of our loved ones who are no longer with us, in "a land at the end of the ocean".