The petitioners sought to place a tablet in the churchyard to commemorate two interments in the same plot in 2005 and 2007. Tablets had been allowed for a short period in the 1960s, but since then the Parochial Church Council had adhered to a policy of not allowing further tablets, in order to preserve the open grassed appearance of the churchyard. In 2011, a Faculty had been granted to authorise a memorial wall on which plaques could be placed to commemorate those whose cremated remains have been interred in the churchyard since 2010. The incumbent and Churchwardens objected to a further plaque being placed in the churchyard. Whilst of the view that the policy of the PCC was reasonable and should normally be adhered to, the Chancellor felt there were exceptional circumstances in this case, as the plot in question was the only cremation plot without a tablet in a row of plots where tablets had been placed in the 1960s. Accordingly, a Faculty was granted.

Faculty granted for major re-ordering of a Grade 1 listed church. Principles laid down in Re St. Alkmund Duffield [2012] (Court of Arches) considered.

The proposals included: the replacement of the church pews with chairs; alteration of the dais in the chancel; the baptistry; new heating, lighting and and audio-visual system; redecoration; the building of an extension for offices; and a garden area. English Heritage, the Victorian Society and the Church Buildings Council all had concerns Chancellor determined that the extension was acceptable, and that the pews were of little merit and could be replaced. As regards the font, the Chancellor was satisfied that the batistry was effectively redundant and that the case for moving the font was made. He therefore granted a faculty. The judgment contains an extensive review of the law and practice relating to fonts.

A judgment dealing with a matter outstanding from Re Holy Trinity Wandsworth [2012], namely, the repositioning of the font and the baptistry screen. Re Duffield discussed. Faculty granted.

The petitioners wished to remove the remaining 19 pews in the church nave and replace them with chairs (of the award-winning 'Theo' design) and to modify and restore the floor to create a single level worship space across the main body of the church. The aim was to permit people to participate in a wider range of worship and other church and community activities. The Victorian Society objected to the removal of the pews, but later withdrew their objection. The Chancellor granted a faculty, finding that there was a clear justification for the proposals in order to meet the need for flexibility in the modern use of the church building.

The petitioners applied for, firstly, a confirmatory faculty in respect of works previously carried out without faculty, including destruction of the pulpit and reuse of the timber to make a new font, and cutting down a mature tree; and, secondly, a faculty to authorise the construction of a prayer room, the re-siting of an 1831 font and the moving of an 1888 font to a baby memorial in the churchyard. The Chancellor granted a faculty for all the items, except that the proposed relocation of the 1888 font to the baby memorial in the churchyard was adjourned generally.

The College sought permission for certain improvements, mainly to the chancel of the chapel, including the permanent retention of seating platforms; the upgrading of the lighting system; the removal of carpet from the majority of the chancel; and the repair of heating grilles to the nave floor. Notwithstanding an objection by the Victrorian Society to the fixing of transparent balustrades to the platforms, in order to prevent falls, the Chancellor decided to grant a faculty for all the works, being satisfied that any harm to the significance of the Chapel as a building of special architectural or historic interest would be relatively minor.

The Court of Arches held that, where a local authority was responsible for a closed churchyard, a parish council had sufficient interest to intervene in faculty proceedings concerning the laying flat of memorials there. Where memorials had been laid flat, the duty on the local authority to maintain the churchyard included an obligation to take into account the safety of memorials and the appearance of the churchyard, but a district council was under no duty to reinstate memorials it had laid flat. (This case is fully reported at [20o9] PTSR 968.)

Iris Dean ("the Deceased"), before her death in 2010, expressed a wish to have her ashes interred in grave A12 in Blackley Cemetery, where her parents, brother and sister were interred. When she died, her husband, who did not wish to be buried in the same grave as his in-laws, purchased grave A136, and had the Deceased ashes interred in it, with a view to his own ashes being interred there in due time. Before he died in 2020, the deceased decided that he did not wish to be cremated, but to be buried with his parents in a churchyard at Droylsden, where his ashes were in fact subsequently interred. The Deceased's daughter now applied for a faculty to exhume her mother's ashes from grave A136 and reinter them in the family grave, A12. The Chancellor determined to treat this as a case of mistake in not burying the Deceased in accordance with her wishes and that it would be unconscionable not to allow the Deceased's ashes to be buried in her chosen final resting place, the family grave.

The subject matter of the petition was a memorial to Tobias Rustat (d. 1694) in the Chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge. The petitioners (the College) wished to remove the memorial from the Chapel, for conservation and retention elsewhere, as they wished to avoid the risk of people worshipping at the Chapel being offended by the memorial, in view of Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade in the late 17th century. There were many objectors to the proposal. The judgment deals with procedural and evidential issues, including refusing the objectors’ application to adjourn the hearing listed for 2-4 February 2022 in order to obtain the expert evidence of a historian, and refusing the petitioners’ application to call an eighth witness.