Memorials

The churchwardens wished to remove from the churchyard a headstone placed on a grave after permission was refused by the Area Dean. The owner of the memorial (himself a stonemason) claimed that he did not receive notice of refusal until after the memorial had been installed. The memorial was of black or very dark grey polished stone and comprised an upright stone with kerbs and a ledger stone covering the grave. The Chancellor decided that, if the owner of the memorial had gone about things correctly, she would have authorised the stone. Therefore she dismissed the petition for its removal, but required the owner of the memorial to pay the costs of the proceedings.

The Rector and Churchwardens petitioned to install a heraldic hatchment with the coat of arms of the Collins family of Adlestrop Park in the nave or in the north transept of the church. There were already in the church three hatchments of the Leigh family, who had owned Adlestrop Park from 1553 until it was sold to the Collins family during the last century. A parishioner objected that "Church hatchments were to mark the death of a ‘Lord of the Manor’ ... only a family which has strong ties over several generations should have such a display.”  The Chancellor was satisfied that hatchments, if displaying legally authorised Coats of Arms, can still with sufficient reason be introduced by Faculty. [Note: Jane Austen is believed to have regularly visited Adlestrop.]

The petitioner applied for a faculty to put kerbs around her late husband's grave. Footings for the kerbs had already been laid without a faculty first being obtained. Although there were several sets of kerbs in other parts of the churchyard, a decision had been made by the church in 1987 not to allow kerbs in the particular row where the petitioner had applied to reserve a grave, because the path at the foot of the graves narrowed, and to allow kerbs along the row would ultimately restrict the path and inhibit access for maintenance machinery. The widow had agreed at the time she reserved the grave that kerbs would not be allowed. The Deputy Vicar General dismissed the petition and directed that the kerb footings should be removed.

The Dean of Arches allowed an appeal against the decision of the Chancellor of the Diocese, who refused to grant a confirmatory faculty for a memorial placed inside the church. The Dean pointed out that a faculty for a memorial inside a church should only be granted in exceptional circumstances. He found that in the present case there were exceptional circumstances, as the persons commemorated had been substantial benefactors of the church and the village over many years.

Faculty granted for the removal wooden and plastic kerbs from a number of graves.

The petitioner applied for approval of a memorial stone for the grave of his father, a former builder and stonemason, with inscriptions on both sides of the stone: on the front, the names and dates of birth and death of the deceased and the word 'Beloved'; and on the back a quotation from a poem by Rudyard Kipling ('Till the master of all good workmen shall set us to work anew') and an engraving of a trowel. The PCC objected to inscriptions on both sides of the stone, saying that it would set a precedent. The Team Rector, who had originally been happy with the proposal, later suggested that the trowel was inappropriate, as it was a symbol of Freemasonry, which might offend some people. The Chancellor determined that the design had artistic merit; that it would not establish a precedent, as there were already several stones in the churchyard with inscriptions on both sides; that the poem extract would look out of place on the front; and that the trowel was a symbol of the lifelong work of the deceased as a builder and stonemason, who had no connection with Freemasonry. Accordingly, the Chancellor granted a faculty.

In 2012, memorial kerbs had been removed from the churchyard without the authority of a faculty, causing distress to several family members of those buried in the churchyard. The Chancellor directed that the Team Vicar and Churchwardens should apply for a confirmatory faculty, in order that objections could be properly dealt with. Faculty granted, subject to conditions, including a requirement that kerbs should be reinstated, but laid flush with the ground.

An urgent faculty was sought for the temporary removal of two headstones from the churchyard to a place of safety. They had been erected in 1962 on the graves of music hall performers whose stage names incorporated a term which is a derogatory and offensive reference to black people. That word was included in the inscriptions. The chancellor granted the faculties, as a temporary expedient to protect the headstones from damage, noting the current Black Lives Matter movement. He gave directions for the future disposal of the matter, particularly the tracing of the respective heirs-at-law, who are the legal owner of the headstones. The Chancellor would determine at a future date whether the headstones be re-introduced, either unaltered or with the offensive wording erased or obscured; whether alternative headstones be substituted; or whether there should be some other resolution.

In 2020, the Chancellor gave a judgment concerning the temporary removal of two memorials from the churchyard. There had been complaints that the inscription on each memorial contained the same allegedly offensive or derogatory word. (See  Re St. Margaret Rottingdean [2020] ECC Chi 4) In the present case, the vicar and churchwardens applied for a faculty to authorise the re-cutting of the stones, so as to omit the offensive word from the inscriptions, and the return of the stones to the churchyard. The families of those commemorated by the stones supported the application. The Chancellor granted a faculty.

The petitioners applied to reintroduce into the churchyard a memorial to their father, which had been placed on the centre of the grave of the petitioners' parents, but had been removed because it had been installed without authority. The grave already had a memorial to the petitioners' mother. The additional memorial to the petitioners' father was in the shape of a small cylinder, with names and dates around the circumference and a Maltese Cross on the top surface. The design was outside the churchyards regulations, though it was noted that most of the memorials nearby breached the regulations in some way. The Chancellor determined that "the memorial proposed is attractive and complements the original memorial in place" and he therefore granted a faculty.