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Alphabetical Index of all judgments on this web site as at 10 September 2024

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The Chancellor granted an interim faculty for a new church boiler, in view of the urgent need to replace the old boiler. The Chancellor had reservations about approving a gas-fired boiler, bearing in mind the policy of the Church of England to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. However, a new gas-fired boiler would have an estimated life of 15 years, at the expiration of which period new carbon neutral options may be available and affordable. The evidence was that the current annual cost of running an electric boiler would be over four times the annual cost of running a new gas-fired boiler.

The Chancellor granted a faculty to permit the opening of a grave and the opening of a casket, in order to permit the petitioners' mother's wedding ring to be placed with the ashes of the petitioners' parents, which had been interred six weeks previously.

The petitioners wished to carry out works of repair to the parapet of the tower, by re-bedding masonry and laying new lead, and also repairs to the west window, which had suffered heavy erosion. There were no objections to the work on the parapet, but the Society for the Protection of Ancent Buiildings objected to the proposed work to the west window, saying that the amount of the proposed replacement stonework was excessive and without justification. The Chancellor took the view that the petitioners had established that far-reaching repairs were needed to the window and he accordingly granted a faculty.

The petition proposed several items of reordering, in order to adapt the church for both sacred and community use. The items included: replacement of the pews with chairs; replacement of the stone font with a moveable wooden font; removal of an old reed organ; creation of a lobby at the west end of the church, and kitchen, toilet and storage facilities; electrical wiring and light fittings; and water and space heating. The Chancellor was satisfied that the community would benefit from the new proposals and he granted a faculty.

The cremated remains of a member of the family concerned in this matter had recently been interred in her parents' grave. The interment had been arranged by certain members of the family, who did not discuss the location of the interment with other members of the family, who, as it turned out, objected to the last deceased being interred in her parents' grave, and they applied for a faculty for exhumation. The Chancellor ruled that the interment should not have taken place in the parents' grave without the agreement of all of the next of kin, and accordingly granted a faculty for exhumation and reinterment elsewhere.

The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty to allow kerbs to be placed around a grave. Kerbs were not permitted under the Diocesan Churchyards Regulations, and the Chancellor could find no strong reason to depart from that policy in relation to this particular application.


In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests around the world, a statue of Edward Colston, who had been involved in the slave trade in the seventeenth century, was pulled down by protestors from its pedestal in Bristol and thrown into the harbour. The church of St. Mary Redcliffe contains four tall windows in the north transept. The illustrations in the stained glass depict the Corporal Acts of Mercy and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The panels at the bottom of the four windows showed that the windows were dedicated to Edward Colston. There was concern at the church that protestors might try to damage the windows, and it was decided to remove the commemorative panels, with a view to replacing them with stained glass images which would not connect the windows with Colston. They applied for a confirmatory faculty, which the Chancellor granted: " ... the contrast between [Colston's] own life and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy is too jarring to be acceptable in a church."

The local branch of the Royal British legion wished to place a war memorial in the churchyard at its own expense. There were two objectors (neither of them a party opponent), one objecting to the proposed type of stone, and the other objecting to the proposed location of the memorial, the colour of it and the lettering. The Chancellor granted a faculty.

A Faculty was granted for: (1) the removal of two short pews at the west end of the south aisle of a Grade I 14th century church and provision of additional bookshelf units; and (2) the removal of the rearmost pew on the south side of the nave to provide additional space for wheelchair users. The Chancellor, considered the principles laid down in Re St. Alkmund Duffield [2013], and determined that, "The selective removal of a very small number of pews will not affect the character of the church as a building of special architectural or historic interest."

The petitioners wished to exhume the ashes of their mother, Mrs. Rose, from Roughan churchyard and reinter the ashes in Beyton churchyard. At the time of her death, Mrs. Rose’s children had decided to inter their mother’s ashes in her parents’ grave at Rougham. Mrs. Rose’s siblings had been ‘furious’ that the funeral had taken place and that their sister’s ashes had been interred in their parents’ grave without them being informed, and they refused to accept an apology from the petitioners. Owing to the family tension, the petitioners felt that the only solution was to exhume Mrs. Rose’s ashes and inter them in a different churchyard with the ashes of her husband, who had recently died. Mrs. Rose’s siblings at first objected to the exhumation, but later withdrew their objection. The Chancellor considered that there were exceptional circumstances to justify the grant of a faculty to allow a family grave to be created for the remains of Mrs. Rose and her husband.

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