A faculty was sought for major re-ordering of an unlisted Victorian church, including relocation of the font, replacement of pews with chairs, re-flooring, new kitchen and toilets and relocation of a screen. The Church Buildings Council and the Diocesan Advisory Committee approved the proposals, and Historic England supported the Victorian Society, who approved the proposals subject to agreed amendments. A faculty was granted.

A faculty had been granted in 2016 to authorise extensive reordering works in the church. The faculty had authorised (inter alia) solid wood Rosehill chairs. The petitioners now wished, after the extended period for completion of the works had elapsed, to introduce Alpha chairs with wooden backs and upholstered seats. The Chancellor refused to grant such variation to the faculty granted in 2016, so as now to allow part-upholstered chairs, but indicated that he would be prepared to consider a further application for variation in respect of one of the alternative solid wood chairs suggested by the church's inspecting architect prior to the 2016 faculty.

The petitioner wished to have the cremated remains of her father exhumed from the churchyard and interred along with the body of her mother in the nearby cemetery, where her brother was also buried. The Chancellor decided that this was a case where an exception could be allowed to the general rule against allowing exhumation, since he considered it a mistake for the family, on the parish priest's advice, to have had the father's cremated remains interred in the churchyard, when the family knew that the mother was against cremation and that further coffin burials in the churchyard were not possible; furthermore, the remains of the three family members who had died – father, mother and son – would then be together.

The intention of the proposals was to improve on a scheme of reordering in 1988, by providing at the west end of the church a larger circulation area near the main door; meeting space; toilet facilities for the disabled; an entrance meeting disablility standards; a kitchen and servery; and a storage area. The Chancellor was satisfied that the majority of the works would result in an improvement to the interior of the church and he granted a faculty for all the items, with the exception of the proposed wheelchair lift at the entrance, which he connsidered 'would have a somewhat utilitarian feel to it'.

The petitioner (aged 98) and her late husband had lived in Belgium but had regularly travelled to Felixstowe over many years to visit the petitioner's mother. The petitioner's husband had died in 1992 and his ashes had been interred in Felixstowe Cemetery. The husband had no religious faith and the petitioner believed at the time of interment of his ashes that the ashes were being interred in an unconsecrated part of the cemetery, though it was eventually discovered that the whole of the cemetery was consecrated. The petitioner now wished to exhume her husband's ashes, and after her death to have his ashes and her own ashes scattered on the seashore in Felixstowe, in order to fulfill their long-held wish. In 1993, at the time when it was thought that the grave was unconsecrated, the petitioner had obtained a Home Office Licence to exhume her husband's ashes, but she had allowed the licence to lapse. The Chancellor, in the very special circumstances of this case, decided to treat this as an exceptional situation where he felt justified in granting a faculty.

The petitioner wished to install a plaque on the north wall of the nave of this Grade II* listed medieval village church commemorating the contribution to the church and parish of his late wife. For many years before her death in May 2023 she had been a much-loved churchwarden. The PCC were sympathetic to the petitioner, and did not object to the petition, but they did not believe his application to be exceptional. The DAC considered the proposed memorial appropriate on the basis of its design, materials, wording, and location. They therefore recommended the proposal for approval; but they deliberately refrained from any comment as to whether the exceptionality test had been met, rightly considering this to be a matter for the Chancellor. Having considered the various factors to which the court should have regard when considering the issue of exceptionality, the Chancellor refused the faculty. Whilst recognising that the deceased’s contributions had been considerable, and significant, he found that they had not been sufficiently special, or outstanding, to go substantially above and beyond the faithful discipleship which the Church, aspires to, and hopes for, from all of its members.

Faculty granted for construction of a single storey extension to incorporate a kitchenette and disabled toilet, and associated works.

The proposals included: (1) replacing the iron gates to the porch with glazed sliding doors; (2) new porch lighting and glazing of one porch window to match the other; (3) relocation of the internal 1906 wooden lobby to the west end of the south aisle and its conversion to storage space; and (4) removal of a pew in the south aisle to allow the relocation of the lobby; and (5)) replacement of the ramp inside the lobby with a new ramp with handrails. The Chancellor granted a faculty for items (1) and (2), but not item (3) (the relocation of the lobby) as proposed, in consequence of which items (4) and (5) were not approved.

The petitioners wished to remove the church pews and replace them with ICS stacking chairs of solid oak with an oak veneered plywood seat and back. The Victoria Society objected to the proposal, but was not a party opponent. The Chancellor was satisfied that a very low degree of harm to the church would result from the removal of the pews, which would be substantially outweighed by the public benefit that would be achieved by their replacement. He accordingly granted a faculty.

The Chancellor granted a faculty for a single collective memorial on which could be recorded up to 120 names of those interred in the area for cremated remains of the churchyard. The Chancellor permitted a large stone of honed granite with three dark granite tablets. He would not normally have permitted such stone for a individual memorial in the churchyard of a sandstone church surrounded by mostly sandstone memorials. But he accepted that sandstone is much less durable than granite. Inscriptions would remain durable for longer on a granite tablet to which inscriptions would be added over a period of many years. Also, the memorial would not be close to other memorials in the churchyard and any adverse effect on the overall appearance of the churchyard would be minimal.