Town in Hampshire, England
Aldershot
A sleepy heathland village of fewer than 1,000 people became the Home of the British Army almost overnight, and the Duke of Wellington came with it, in bronze.
Key information
- County
- Hampshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Being the Home of the British Army, the Aldershot Garrison and its Gurkha community
- Famous people
- Duke of Wellington, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Joanna Lumley
About Aldershot
The village that was swallowed by an army
Before 1854, Aldershot was a small heathland village with fewer than 1,000 residents. Then the Crimean War exposed how badly prepared the British Army was, and the War Office bought up open heath and built a permanent training camp there. Prince Albert took a keen personal interest. Wooden huts replaced tents, roads were laid out, and the railway brought soldiers in by the thousand. A town of shops, pubs, churches and lodging houses grew up to serve them. Queen Victoria was a regular visitor too. A Royal Pavilion was built for her in 1855, where she could watch her troops on parade. It stood until it was demolished in the 1960s. The nickname stuck, and Aldershot is still known as the Home of the British Army.
The Duke who was banished to the heath
The Wellington Statue on Round Hill is one of the oddest bits of removals history in England. It originally stood on top of the arch at Hyde Park Corner in London, where the colossal bronze of the Iron Duke on his horse was widely mocked as out of scale. In the 1880s the whole thing was taken down and carted to Aldershot, where it has looked out over the garrison ever since. The statue is huge, weighing tens of tons, and the Duke has never been short of company on the hill: the Army has been training around him for well over a century. For a man who beat Napoleon, a posting to Hampshire heathland is a fittingly soldierly fate.
Where the Army learned to do press-ups
Aldershot gave the British Army its fitness culture. The Army Gymnastic Staff was set up here in 1860, and the town became the centre of military physical training, with instructors trained to drill soldiers in gymnastics and sport. That legacy runs through generations of British servicemen, and through the way many of them still think about fitness. The town is also home to the Aldershot Military Museum, which tells the story of the camp and of the town that grew around it. There is also a big open-air pool, Aldershot Lido, from the 1930s, a reminder of how much leisure the garrison once demanded.
The Shots: a club that died and came back
Aldershot's football story has real drama in it. The first Aldershot FC was founded in 1926 and joined the Football League in 1932. The club spent six decades there, a big achievement for a small town, before collapsing under debt in 1992. Supporters refused to let the name go. Aldershot Town was formed within weeks, starting in the lower reaches of non-league football and climbing the divisions. In 2008 they won promotion back into the Football League. They play at the Recreation Ground, and supporters call the team the Shots, a short form of the town's name that has become the club's badge of identity.
Gurkhas, a Hollywood-style campaign and a town's biggest community
Aldershot has one of the largest Nepalese communities in England, with roots in the long association between the Gurkhas and the British Army. Nepalese shops, restaurants and community groups are now part of daily life in the town. In 2009 the Gurkha Justice Campaign made national headlines when the actress Joanna Lumley, whose father served with the Gurkhas, led a very public fight over the right of retired Gurkha veterans to settle in the UK. The government changed its policy after the campaign, and the cause had strong support in Aldershot. It is one of the best-known examples of the town's military connections reaching far beyond the garrison gates.
A town that remembers
Military towns carry military losses. In 1972 an IRA bomb exploded at the officers' mess of 16 Parachute Brigade in Aldershot, killing seven people: five female catering staff, a gardener and a Catholic army chaplain, Father Gerry Weston. All were civilians or non-combatants working at the garrison, and the attack is still remembered locally. Today the town balances its working garrison with ordinary suburban life. Soldiers in uniform in the high street are normal, and so is the sound of drilling and training from the ranges beyond.