Construction of the Bishop Ford Memorial Garden is in it's finishing stages. Located on the grounds of All Saints Anglican Church in Cochrane, it will be a private, gated area where family members can gather to remember their loved ones.

Ruth-Anne Marley is the People's Warden at All Saints Anglican Church in Cochrane and she says that the Memorial Garden is the perfect place to remember and honour Cochranites with deep roots and personal connections to the community.

"We have so many families who have deep roots to the land and to that area," says Marley. " We have many pioneer ranching families that founded these legacies for their families."

The centrepiece of the Memorial Garden already stands in its place, where it was very carefully lowered earlier this month.

Marley says that right in the heart of the garden, and overlooking downtown Cochrane is a granite columbarium.

"We wanted to give a place that would really honour the legacy and the lives of Cochrane citizens," says Marley. "We felt that we have this beautiful property up on the hill and we would like to put a columbarium there."

The 4-sided, 72-niche granite columbarium is designed to hold the urns of your loved ones. Marley says that families can rest assured that their loved ones' ashes will be secured safely.

"The niches themselves hold two urns that would have the ashes of a loved one," says Marley. "They are firmly locked into the structure, so there's actually two doors. There's a granite shutter that's on the outside that people can engrave and then inside is an actual aluminum box that's locked inside."

Marley says that landscaping features such as trees and benchmarkers will be available within the Garden to memorialize loved ones.

"If their names are engraved somewhere, then you have a place that you can actually firmly connect with that person as well," says Marley. "You can bring future generations to say  - This is where your great grandmother  was or great grandfather was and this is what they did in their lives."

Marley says that niches can be purchased at any time for future use.

You can contact the church directly, here.