Review of the ecclesiastical court judgments during November
The ten consistory court judgments circulated in November 2025 included:
- Procedural
- Reordering, extensions and other building workshops
- Church Treasures/ Sale
- Exhumation
- Churchyards and burials
This end-of-year review also includes: CDM Decisions and Safeguarding; Privy Council Business; Other legal issues; CFCE Determinationsz as; and Links to other posts relating to ecclesiastical law.
Re St. Mary Doverdale [2025] ECC Wor 1 The judgment considered the failure to observe condition in a faculty, and imposed sanctions on both the Petitioners and Diocesan Board of Finance, each of which was ordered to pay 50% of costs of the judgment. In December 2016, the Quinquennial Inspection of St Mary’s identified movement in the south west wall of the church. Mr David Arnold, who had been involved in producing the Quinquennial Inspection, was asked by the PCC to investigate further. He recommended that work should take place to stabilise the wall. A similar project had recently been undertaken at the east end of the church [5].
By 2018, further structural movement had been noticed and the firm which had produced the Quinquennial Inspection, advised consulting a structural engineer to investigate what works were necessary [6]. In the spring of 2020, two boreholes were dug by the engineers (apparently without faculty permission) to investigate the situation underground. The engineers recommended using resin injections under the foundations to stabilise the wall. A technical specification was drawn up and a contractor was retained to carry out the work in due course [7].
The procedure of applying for the faculty began using the new online system in late 2021. Whilst the Assistant Building Officer in the Diocese of Worcester “was especially helpful in progressing it”, the PCC Secretary stated that it was never indicated during the faculty application process that the diocese would require any other professional to be involved before or during the works. His understanding was that as soon as the faculty was issued the works could commence forthwith. However, “that is inconsistent with the fact that, in January 2022, the Diocesan Advisory Committee issued a standard form Notification of Advice which recommended approval of the proposed works, subject to various conditions, including that an archaeological watching brief was commissioned to the satisfaction of the DAC Archaeology Advisor [8].
The petition was formally submitted in May 2022 and Summers Ch. granted a conditional faculty on 16 August 2022 [10]. The PCC at St Mary’s was becoming increasingly alarmed at the worsening state of the west wall, though at no stage did the Petitioners approach the Diocese of Worcester and ask that the petition should be expedited or dealt with on an emergency basis. No variation of the Condition was ever sought [11].
The Director of Church Buildings in the Diocese of Worcester observed that there was simply a breakdown in communications at this stage. The Churchwarden said that while he appreciated the need to arrange the watching brief, he did not consider it reasonable or fair to expect the Petitioners to set this up “without any support at all from the Diocese” .
After reviewing the applicable law, the Deputy Chancellor concluded that it was not disputed that the Condition attached to his order was ignored. In considering what consequences should flow, he summarized the aggravating features of the failure to comply with the Condition [27] and also the mitigating features of the failure [28].
Taking these factors in the round, he concluded that the appropriate order was that the Petitioners should pay 50% of the costs of this judgment and the diocese the other 50%. This order “reflects the deliberate disregard of the Condition by the Petitioners but also the mitigating factors, in particular that the failure of the diocese to provide promised information was the point at which matters began to go wrong”.
He also stated:
“[30] I have determined that the Petitioners deliberately did not comply with the Condition. One of them…is an ordained priest. I therefore consider I should direct that a copy of this judgment be sent to the local archdeacon for consideration. What disciplinary steps, if any, should follow, is entirely a matter for the diocesan authorities to consider”. [Re St. Mary Doverdale [2025] ECC Wor 1] [Post].
Reordering, extensions and other building works
Re St. Stephen Redditch [2025] ECC Wor 2 Major re-ordering proposal; removal of remaining pews and 1970s partitioning; replacement with enclosed structures in west end of side aisles to house kitchen, servery, toilets, ringing room and flexible welcome area, and installation of further rooms on a mezzanine level above the ground floor rooms with internal link bridge, opening up of the north and south doors and replacement of gas boiler heating system with underfloor heating powered by two new air source heat pumps; introduction of new seating. Grade II listed building; extensive consultation process; concerns and objections considered, but no parties opponent; Re St Alkmund, Duffield [2013] 2 WLR 854 and In re Holy Trinity, Clapham [2022] ECC Swk 4 principles, National Planning Practice Guidance and meaning of ‘serious’ or ‘substantial’ harm considered, particularly in relation to mezzanine proposals; Faculty granted subject to conditions requiring approval by DAC of detailed matters; further details of proposed new seating and flooring to be supplied to the Court before these proposals may proceed; archaeological watching brief to be commissioned before works below floor or ground level undertaken; 4 pews to be retained; comment on designation of toilet facilities. [Re St. Stephen Redditch [2025] ECC Wor 2] [Top of section] [Top of post]
Other building works, including re-roofing
Re St. Mary-Le-Strand London [2025] ECC Lon 2 Proposed redevelopment of undercroft to provide community room with supporting facilities; insertion of a lift and stairs between levels, reordering nave to restore original eighteenth century design, reinstatement of original paint scheme to chancel and ceiling; shortening of pews to facilitate usage of the area with insertion of a tea point at the west end; provision of step-free access to nave and undercroft levels including new ramps and terrace; Re St Alkmund, Duffield [2013] Fam 158 principles considered; Grade 1 listed building; extensive consultations, including CBC, HE, Georgian Group (GG), Victorian Society (VS) and local community; no formal objections; some harm arising from undercroft proposals but not serious when set against prospective benefits; air source heat pump system; reinstatement of C18th design and décor; VS concerns as to loss of ‘Withers’ floor considered, but alteration to ‘Gibbs’ design approved; visual impact of external ramps considered, comments of HE, GG and CBC considered; ramps considered to offer accessibility benefits outweighing prospective harm; Faculty granted subject to conditions requiring review and approval by DAC of detailed matters and proof of financial viability; regard to be had to NCZ and planning conditions. [Re St. Mary-Le-Strand London [2025] ECC Lon 2] [Top of section] [Top of post] [See also: Church Times (£) St Mary-le-Strand, London, to receive £4.6 million from National Lottery Heritage Fund, (22 December 2025)].
Re St. Mary Mortlake [2025] ECC Swk 5 The Team Vicar and Churchwardens sought a faculty for a new screen dividing the north aisle from the rest of the church and for the extension and refurbishment , (of the kitchen in the north aisle of the Grade II* listed church. The church’s interior was extensively reordered in 1979 by the notable architects Maguire and Murray, whose distinctive screen enclosed the north aisle.
Following a reorientation of the seating to eastward facing, the screen no longer served its intended liturgical purpose and was viewed as visually discordant. The Chancellor considered representations from the Twentieth Century Society, which urged retention of the original screen due to its architectural significance.
Applying the Duffield framework, the Chancellor found that the proposals would cause only modest harm to the building’s significance, outweighed by clear benefits to worship, mission, and community use. The kitchen improvements were uncontroversial, and the new screen was deemed more harmonious. The works, funded by two legacies, were approved. A faculty was granted subject to DAC agreement on kitchen layout details, with completion required within twelve months. [Re St. Mary Mortlake [2025] ECC Swk 5] [Top of section] [Top of post].
Removal and replacement of pews
Re St. Mary Magdalene Lillington [2025] ECC Cov 2 The Parochial Church
Council (PCC) petitioned to remove the remaining century-old pews from the Grade II listed church to create flexible seating for wider community use. The proposal included replacing pews in the nave with heavy wooden chairs and adding 100 lightweight, stackable chairs for occasional use. Timber from some pews would be repurposed into a screen concealing stored chairs. The scheme also sought to relocate the fifteenth-century font from the southeast corner to a position opposite the main entrance, restoring its traditional symbolic placement.
Three individuals objected, arguing that removing pews would damage the church’s character and waste funds. Because the proposed upholstered seating contravened ChurchCare Guidance, the Chancellor referred the matter to the Church Buildings Council (CBC), which supported flexible seating but warned against upholstery. The petitioners justified the upholstery choice on practical and aesthetic grounds. Applying the principles from Re St Alkmund, Duffield [2012], the Chancellor found no harm to the church’s historical or architectural significance. The upholstery concerns were satisfactorily addressed, and the font move was reversible. Accordingly, the Chancellor granted the faculty as requested. [Re St. Mary Magdalene Lillington [2025] ECC Cov 2] [Top of section] [Top of post].
Re Holy Trinity Trowbridge St. Thomas [2025] ECC Sal 1 Dr Susan and
Carol Dawson petitioned for a faculty to exhume their mother Margaret Dawson’s cremated remains from Holy Trinity Churchyard, Trowbridge, to scatter them at Portchester Crematorium, where other family ashes had been scattered. The petitioners had sought “out of court” advice from the Chancellor in the latter half of 2019; it is due to that advice that the matter came before the Deputy Chancellor to consider the matter afresh with the evidence which has been provided with the petition and as a result of subsequent directions given by the chancellor [1].
The petitioners are the daughters of the deceased and seek to exhume her cremated remains from the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, which were interred in 1977, and have them scattered at Porchester Crematorium, Fareham, Hampshire [5]. The petitioners argued that their mother’s Portsmouth roots, the church’s diminished use, and family connections to Portchester justified the move.
Deputy Chancellor Jeremy Rawlings, applying the principles from Re Blagdon Cemetery, held that Christian burial in consecrated ground is presumed permanent and that exhumation requires “special circumstances.”
The petitioners explained that the interment in Trowbridge is in a church yard of a church which is in the centre of a very busy roundabout on a major traffic route; the church no longer holds regular services on site. However, the Deputy Chancellor noted:
“[19]. …a cursory look at the website of the mission community of which the church is now part demonstrates that it is used for occasional services and as a hub for the local community. I note from the map the location and can see the how the church and graves are situated, the churchyard and environs appears from photographs to be planted with mature trees. I do not accept that the future of the church is in jeopardy. I find that the current evidence is to the contrary”.
With regard to the Family Grave/Method of re-interment, he found none: the 42-year lapse of time, the church’s location, and family wishes did not amount to exceptional reasons. The original interment decision by the deceased’s husband remained valid, and proposed scattering (not reburial) did not meet the threshold for exception. Accordingly, the petition was refused, and the court reaffirmed the presumption of permanence in Christian burial, emphasizing respect for the original resting place.
Update: 16 December 2025 at 14:35: Re Holy Trinity Trowbridge St. Thomas [2025] ECC Sal 1 [Revised] is a revised version of the Trowbridge judgment with corrections to a small number of typographical errors pointed out by the petitioner.
[Re Holy Trinity Trowbridge St. Thomas [2025] ECC Sal 1] [Top of section] [Top of post].
- Development of churchyard
- Designation of closed churchyard
- Churchyard Regulations
- Reservation of grave space
General Cemetery Act 2025 A Bill to make new provision for the regulation and management of the General Cemetery Company upon its registration under the Companies Act 2006; to permit the transfer of the ownership and management of Kensal Green Cemetery and West London Crematorium to a charity; and to confer powers upon the General Cemetery Company to extinguish rights of burial and disturb human remains in Kensal Green Cemetery for the purpose of increasing the space for interments; and for connected purposes. Royal Assent on 27 October. [Top]
Designation of closed churchyard
Re St. Nicholas Ulceby [2025] ECC Lin 2 The Rural Dean sought the Chancellor’s directions on how to proceed where “Mr & Mrs I” wished to get approval now for their proposed memorial stones to be placed over their graves (previously reserved by faculty) at the time of their deaths. Bishop Ch. stated that a previous incumbent now retired “signed off” on the headstones from Co Op Care verbally in 2020’. In 2022 Mr and Mrs I changed their arrangements to “Mindful Memorials” and these stones were then prepared [5]. The Chancellor commented:
“[6]. The previous incumbent left no paperwork in respect of his decision. In the many years I have been a Chancellor in this diocese and before that a Deputy Chancellor in another Diocese I have never known memorial stones to be prepared in this way before death. Additionally, it should be well known by all experienced (and I hope even the most inexperienced) incumbents that unless a grave memorial complies with the Diocesan Churchyard Regulations issued by me some years ago, then the incumbent does not have jurisdiction to “sign off” on any memorial in the churchyard. It is the Chancellor’s jurisdiction to permit gravestones in churchyards which is derived from the jurisdiction of the diocesan Ordinary.
[7]. These memorials do not comply with the Regulations and so they were always going to need a Faculty before they could be used. I understand that Mr I is a churchwarden and so it is disappointing that he did not realise that a Faculty may be required…”
The Chancellor directed that such approval could only be sought by means of a faculty petition once one of the couple had died and the memorial was then ready to be erected. There must be a temporal link between the application for a Faculty – for the works to be permitted – and the moment when the works are to be brought into effect. The Chancellor indicated that he could not grant a Faculty for a memorial which may not be erected for many years, without knowing the circumstances in which that memorial will be set at the time it is required. [Re St. Nicholas Ulceby [2025] ECC Lin 2] [Top of section] [Top of post].
Re Tolleshunt Knights Cemetery [2025] ECC Chd 2 The Petitioner, Mrs Stella Yiasimi, sought a Faculty to reserve a double grave space in Tolleshunt Knights Cemetery for herself and her husband, citing long-standing connections with the adjacent Eastern Orthodox Monastery of St John the Baptist. She was not resident in the parish, had no link with its parish churches, and therefore had no legal right of burial. The Team Rector and Parochial Church Council (PCC) opposed the application, relying on a policy limiting grave reservations to parish residents or those connected with the parish churches. The policy aimed to preserve limited burial space for parishioners and to avoid the cemetery becoming filled by visitors to the monastery, whose own burial ground is reserved for resident members only. The Chancellor, though sympathetic, found the PCC’s policy reasonable and justified. She doubted whether a Faculty could lawfully be granted without the Team Rector’s consent, and held that, even if such power existed, exceptional circumstances would be required to override the policy, and none had been shown. The petition was therefore refused. [Re Tolleshunt Knights Cemetery [2025] ECC Chd 2] [Post]
Re St Mary Claxby [2025] ECC Lin 4 The family of the late Stephen Cade petitioned for a faculty to permit a grave space, which would otherwise be used to received bodily remains, to receive his cremated remains so that a larger memorial stone could set out the story of his family relationships and to have space for Mrs Cade’s ashes and for her details to be added to the memorial stone when the time comes [1]. The PCC did not support the application on the basis that space in the churchyard was very limited [3]. Bishop Ch. considered that efficient use of the land the churchyard has for burials must be made, and permitting a space for a full burial to be taken by cremated remains would be unfair when there were so few spaces available for full burials [4]. The Chancellor refused to grant the faculty. [Re St Mary Claxby [2025] ECC Lin 4] [Top of section] [Top of page].
Re St. Mary and St. Nicholas Wrangle [2025] ECC Lin 3 The churchwarden, administrator and Ms Judy Bell (daughter of the deceased) petitioned for a faculty to permit a grave space, which would otherwise be used to received bodily remains, to receive the cremated remains of Norman Edwin Gostelow in order to be able to erect a full-sized upright memorial to match that of another family member[1]. There is a Garden of Remembrance close by, but the family wish their father’s ashes to be interred in a full-sized grave so that the larger memorial stone can be placed over it, rather than a smaller ashes memorial in the cremated remains area [2]. The application is supported by the PCC [3].
The Chancellor considered that efficient use of the land the churchyard has for burials must be made, and permitting a space for a full burial to be taken by cremated remains would be unfair given that there was a Garden of Remembrance available [4]. The Chancellor refused to grant the faculty. [Re St. Mary and St. Nicholas Wrangle [2025] ECC Lin 3] [Top of section] [Top of page].
- Burial Act 1853 (Notice): Order giving notice of the discontinuance of burials in: St Thomas Becket Church Churchyard, Bridford, Exeter, Devon ; and St Mary’s Churchyard, Thundridge, Hertfordshire.
CDM Decisions and Safeguarding
Written determinations of disciplinary tribunals hearing complaints brought under the CDM, together with any decisions on penalty are published by the Church of England; included are judgments from the Arches Court of Canterbury and the Chancery Court of York where determinations have been appealed. The majority of complaints that are made under the CDM are resolved by the bishop, archbishop, or President of Tribunals, without having to convene a tribunal.
CDM Decisions
Penalties by consent
The page on the CofE website Penalties by Consent records the penalties that have been imposed by a bishop or archbishop with the consent of the respondent under section 16 of the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 and penalties that have been imposed under section 30 or 31.
Name: The Revd DAVID SAMUEL AUSTEN
Diocese: Manchester
Date imposed: 26th September 2025
Relevant CDM section: 16(1)
Statutory Ground of Misconduct: 8(1)(d) = Conduct unbecoming & inappropriate to the office & work of a clerk in Holy Orders
Penalty: Injunction and Limited Prohibition for 1 year (with effect from 1st October 2025)
The dates of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England may be found by scrolling down to the bottom of the page Cathedrals Fabric Commission. The programme for 2025 is here and the next meeting will be on 11 December 2025.
Recent summaries of specific issues that have been considered in the consistory courts include:
Bells
- “The bells, the bells”: Re St Mary Magdalene, Richmond, (27 October 2025).
Exhumation
- Strewing vs scattering cremation ashes – further considerations, (18 November 2025).
Churchyards
-
Burial plot reservation, (13 November 2025).
General/Miscellaneous
- Interim Bishop of Bangor (28 November 2025).
- Parochial Fees Church in Wales 2026, (27 November 2025).
- Church of England Parochial Fees 2026, (26 November 2025).
- David Tudor CDM update – November 2025, (25 November 2025).
- Charity Commission warning to Archbishops’ Council, (14 November 2025).
- Episcopal vacancy – Church in Wales, (12 November 2025).
- Consistory court sanctions, (11 November 2025).
- DBS awareness campaign, (5 November 2025).
- Makin Review – Progress Update, (1 November 2025).
- Clergy Conduct Measure – Back to Synod?, (1 November 2025).
- A Roman Catholic Cathedral in Dublin, (16 November 2025).
- Charity Commission warning to Archbishops’ Council, (14 November 2025).
- Episcopal vacancy – Church in Wales, (12 November 2025).
- Consistory court sanctions, (11 November 2025).
- DBS awareness campaign, (5 November 2025).
- Makin Review – Progress Update, (1 November 2025).
- Clergy Conduct Measure – Back to Synod?, (1 November 2025).
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Updated: 2 December 2025 at 11:40.
Notes on the conventions used for the navigation between cases reviewed in this post are summarized here.