Having been through a period of decline, the Grade II* listed church had been revitalised in recent years, with 300 people attending weekly to worship in an evangelical style. The Petitioners wished to carry out a major reordering in stages, to create a multi-functional space for the church and the wider community. The first stage of the reordering involved the replacement of the pews with chairs, a servery and the moving of the font from near the main church door. The chair proposed was an Alpha SB2M", with a chromed metal frame and an upholstered seat and back. Most of the amenity societies consulted objected to the taking out of the pews and replacement with the proposed style of chair. The Victorian Society was a party opponent. The Chancellor was satisfied that a case had been made out for the servery and the replacement of the pews with the chosen chairs, and granted a faculty, but he did not consider that an adequate case had been made for the moving of the font.

The petitioner sought a faculty to authorise the exhumation of his father's cremated remains from the family plot of his mother's family and to reinter the remains in a new plot in which the petitioner's mother's cremated remains could be interred in due course. The Petitioner's mother had not realised at the time of her husband's death that there was only one space left in her family's plot. This had caused the petitioner's mother a lot of distress since the interment, as she wished her remains in due course to be buried with her husband's remains. The Deputy Chancellor determined that the circumstances of the present case were such as to warrant an exception to the general rule that human remains, once interred, should not be disturbed, and he accordingly granted a faculty.

A father and son had died together in 1977 and their ashes had been interred in a public cemetery. The father's widow applied for a faculty to authorise exhumation of the remains and their reinterment in a private burial ground with a view to creating a family grave where the remains of other members of the family could be interred. The Chancellor received reports from a psychotherapist and a general practitioner that the exhumation and reinterment would be beneficial to the mental well-being of one of the widow's daughters. The Chancellor granted a faculty, subject to a condition that the remains of the father and son, after such a long period, could be identified and fully removed.

In 1984 the cremated remains of RM were interred in a churchyard. RM’s widow died in 2022 or 2023, and her cremated remains were still retained by her daughter. The daughter now wished to scatter the remains of both parents under a tree in her garden, in order to fulfil the wishes of her mother. Following the guidelines in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, Court of Arches, the Chancellor could not find any special circumstances that made this case sufficiently ‘exceptional’ to permit an exception to the rule of permanence of burial.

Two sisters of a man who had recently died wished, in accordance with his alleged wishes, to have his ashes interred in the grave of his former wife. Other members of the family objected to the proposal, without becoming parties opponent in the proceedings, alleging that the deceased’s wife had been a victim of domestic abuse from her husband (from whom she had been divorced on the grounds of his abuse) and that it was not therefore appropriate for his remains to be buried with hers. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty because the interment of the deceased’s ashes in the grave of the his late wife “would become a cause of distress or conflict, or a focus of grievance, between family members, and those attending to mourn at [his late wife’s] graveside.”

On the day before an interment of ashes, a relative of the deceased pointed out to the curate that the hole prepared for the ashes was not in the right plot. After consultation between the curate and the rector, a hole was dug in the correct plot. At a service for the interment of the ashes, the family left after the ashes (inside a bag) had been placed in the correct plot which had been dug and before the plot was filled in. The verger subsequently insisted that the ashes were in the wrong plot and, after consultation with the rector and the curate, the ashes were interred in the first plot. When the family was informed that the ashes had been moved, they said that the plot where the ashes had been place at the interment service was the correct plot. The rector, without consulting the archdeacon or the Diocesan Registry, dug up the ashes and interred them in the correct plot. He then applied for a confirmatory faculty. The Chancellor accepted that there had been a mistake, but pointed out that an exhumation should not take place without proper authority, and he ordered the rector to pay the costs of the preparation of the judgment.

The petitioner wished to have her mother's body exhumed from a consecrated burial ground in the Diocese of Chichester and reinterred in a consecrated burial ground in another diocese. The reason given by the petitioner was that the proximity of her mother’s grave to those of close family members of her ex-husband, who had been violent and abusive towards the petitioner and her children, was affecting her mental health and made it stressful for the petitioner and her children to visit the grave. There was medical evidence to support the Petitioner's state of health. The Chancellor granted a faculty, being satisfied that there were special circumstances which justified the making of an exception from the theological norm that Christian burial is final. In view of the sensitivity of the matter, the Chancellor decided to make the judgment anonymous and required that it should not be published until after the exhumation and reinterment had been carried out.

Two petitions and two pending petitions relating to the exhumation of cremated remains, currently stored in a municipal cemetery on a temporary basis in non-biodegradable urns beneath plaques, on the expiration of the initial licences.  The chancellor considered the need for a faculty in such a situation, and indicated that he would be minded to grant a faculty where it could be shown that the original interment was never intended to be permanent. Faculties would also be granted in two cases on the basis of reinterment in a family grave elsewhere.

A faculty was sought to permit the exhumation of the remains of a husband, in order that they might be interred with the remains of his wife in another grave in the same cemetery. His wife had expressed a wish in her will to be buried with her husband, but her husband's remains had been interred in a family grave where there had previously been three interments and there was no more room for further interments. The Chancellor determined that the circumstances justified an exception to the general rule against exhumation, so as to create a family grave in which the remains of both husband and wife could be buried together.

The petitioners, who were Romanian nationals and Christians, were living in Worcester when their child was tragically stillborn in 2020. The child’s remains were interred in Astwood Cemetery. The petitioners subsequently moved back to Romania, to live near their extended families. They now wished to have the child’s remains exhumed and reinterred according to the rites of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Applying the tests set out in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, Court of Arches, the Chancellor determined that this was an exceptional case where exhumation should be allowed: “The fact that the plan is for CD’s remains to be placed in a Romanian Orthodox churchyard with suitable rites, and that this churchyard is one where other members of CD’s family are buried supports the petitioner’s application, as it is clear that the remains will be treated with appropriate dignity and reverence, and that they will be buried in a ‘family grave’ in the wider sense of in a churchyard where other family members are buried.”