In Re Lavender Hill Cemetery Enfield [2026] ECC Lon 1, HS died in 1996 and was buried in Lavender Hill Cemetery [‘LHC’] in consecrated ground. His wife died in 2014 and was buried with HS in a joint plot [9]. The Petitioner, AA, supported by her brother, petitioned to exhume the remains of her parents, HS and RS, to rebury them in Noddfa Cemetery in South Wales [1]. She told the consistory court that she had promised her father, HS, that he would be buried at Noddfa because he had told her that he wished to be buried there with his father [10]. AA said that when HS died, however, though the family contacted Noddfa Cemetery, her mother, RS, who had been diagnosed with dementia [15], wanted HS buried at Lavender Hill, and AA maintained that it was because of her mother’s dementia that she did not remember her late husband’s wish [11].

Etherington Ch had begun by pointing out that the general rule governing exhumation from consecrated ground for reburial elsewhere was that “this is their final resting place and exhumation will only be permitted where there is an exceptional justification for it (subject to provisions covering urgent judicial or police investigations of suspicious death)” [2]. The leading authority for that assertion was Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, 4 All ER 482 [3].

Etherington Ch fully understood that dementia was very distressing and often involved extremely difficult decisions by the sufferer’s family [18]. AA and the family had acceded to their mother’s wish to have her late husband buried in the cemetery at Lavender Hill, and it was not clear that their mother understood her late husband’s wish to be buried in South Wales [19]. Further:

“Unless she was mentally incompetent, RS’s wishes are likely to have been paramount in any event, but even if she was unable to make an informed decision, AA and the family decided in her interests to override the promise made to HS and bury his mortal remains at LHC. Many would think that this was entirely the correct decision and likely to have been one of which HS would have approved in those circumstances” [20].

When RS died in 2014, AA and the family decided to have her buried in the same cemetery, and it was likely that

“this is where RS had wished to be buried as I am not told of any expression of any wish by her to be buried in Wales and, in any event, she would doubtless have wished to be interred in a grave with or adjacent to that of her husband who was buried in LHC” [21].

In conclusion, he was not convinced that either HS or RS would have wished their place of rest to be disturbed “many, many years (30 and 12 respectively) after their original burials” [28]. Petitions dismissed [29]. [With thanks to Ray Hemingray.]