Memorials

There was an application for a faculty to authorise a polished green granite memorial, including an etching of a rose picked out in blue. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty on the grounds that some features of the proposed memorial were outside the churchyards regulations and no good reason had been advanced for allowing an exception.

The Chancellor had previously refused permission for a polished green granite memorial stone. The petitioner had responded with a letter expressing disappointment at the Chancellor's decision. This judgment contains the Chancellor's reasons for his decision to refuse permission for the type of stone requested.

The petitioner wished to install a replacement memorial on his parents' grave. The design included images of a dove, a stairway to heaven and two swans. The inscription included a verse of poetry written by the petitioner's daughter and it ended with an x, the symbol of a kiss. There was an objection that the design would not be in keeping with the part of the churchyard where the memorial would be located. The Chancellor granted a faculty, subject to a condition that the x should be omitted from the inscription.

The Chancellor considered three petitions relating to memorials. The first petition sought retrospective approval of a memorial (already erected) in the shape of an open book. The second petition, by the Archdeacon, sought the removal of the memorial. The third petition was for a further memorial in the shape of an open book. The Chancellor decided to authorise the first memorial and the erection of the second and to refuse the Archdeacon's petition.

The petitioner wished to erect in the churchyard a memorial of black polished granite with matching kerbs filled with grey granite chippings. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty as the proposed memorial was outside the churchyards regulations and he also considered it inappropriate for the particular churchyard. He also made it clear that the unlawful introduction of unsuitable memorials of a similar type in the past did not justify the current proposal.

The Rector and churchwardens petitioned for a faculty permitting the incumbent to authorise modest uncoloured pictures on memorials within the new churchyard extension. The Chancellor granted a faculty subject to the conditions that the pictures authorized: (i) must not occupy more than one third of the face of the stone and must be uncoloured; (ii) must reflect the life of the deceased; (iii) must not be inconsistent with Christian theology and doctrine; and (iv) must not be of a subject-matter which is transitory in nature. A factor in the Chancellor's decision was that the churchyard extension was visually screened from the main churchyard by a large blackthorn hedge.

A baby had died two days old in 2014, and a memorial with kerbs and chippings had been erected on his grave without the authority of a faculty or even the approval of a priest. The memorial was of black polished stone and kerbs, and the inscription on the stone included the words 'OUR LITTLE PRINCE' and 'MUMMY AND DADDY LOVE YOU XXX', whilst the words ''FLY HIGH OUR BABY JJ' were inscribed on the kerb at the foot of the grave.  The proposed inscription in respect of the petitioner's father included 'OUR KING' and 'DAD AND GRANDAD/ALL THE WORLD FOR EVER AND A DAY/XXX'. Prior to installation of the memorial, the petitioner had been told by a churchwarden (during an interregnum) that there were no restrictions on the type of memorial she could have. In 2022 the child's mother petitioned for retrospective permission for the memorial and for a further inscription to be added in respect of her father. The Deputy Chancellor was unhappy about many of the features of the memorial, which were outside the churchyards regulations, but in the exceptional circumstances of the family having been badly misled so many years ago, he granted a faculty.

The petitioner wished to have inscriptions on both sides of a memorial headstone on the grave of her late son. This was not permitted by the Diocesan Churchyard Regulations, but the Chancellor considered that there were sufficient exceptional circumstances to allow the general prohibition on inscriptions on both sides of a memorial to be relaxed in this case.

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.

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.