Business events in Aldershot

A town built round a camp

In 1851 Aldershot was a farming village of 875 people. Rushmoor Borough Council's own conservation appraisal traces the modern town to the government's decision in 1853 to put a permanent military garrison on the heath north of that village, chosen partly because it sat between London and the naval base at Portsmouth. The Royal Engineers first camped on what is now Princes Gardens, the camp was built between 1854 and 1859, and by the late 1890s the wooden huts had given way to brick barracks in what the council calls the largest British military garrison in the British Empire.

The civilian town grew up outside the camp boundary, about a mile north-west of the old village, and its Victorian street pattern and buildings still show it. That makes Aldershot unusual among Hampshire towns: its centre is mostly nineteenth century, laid out to serve soldiers and their families rather than a market or a port.

The town centre now

Rushmoor describes the centre as a mix of high street names and independent businesses, with The Wellington shopping centre, Westgate Leisure Park and a cinema. Most of it is pedestrianised. The weekly market is on Thursdays.

The biggest recent change is Union Yard, the council's own regeneration scheme between the High Street and Union Street. It opened in March 2025 with Polden Studios (128 student units), two blocks of flats, 18 affordable flats, a makers' yard of small workshops, a new public square and 12 commercial units on the ground floor. The council kept ownership of the student building and the commercial units, so it is also the landlord for much of the new shop space.

The ONS UK Business Counts for 2026 put the number of enterprises across Rushmoor at 3,395. That is a district figure, so it includes Farnborough as well as Aldershot.

Meeting here

Business events in Aldershot are listed above and below this text. The venue we have a page for is Aldershot Town FC, The EBB Stadium. Farnborough, Rushmoor's other town, has its own page, and Fleet and Farnham, in Surrey, are worth a look too, as is North Hampshire as a whole. If this would be your first event, start with your first business event.