The family of Mrs C sought a faculty permitting the exhumation of her cremated remains from one grave in Magdalen Cemetery for their re-burial in another. Mrs C had died very suddenly and unexpectedly in March 2014 and her remains were interred in a cremated remains plot the following month. It had always been intended that the remains of Mr and Mrs C would be buried together. Twelve months after the interment Mr C realised that his conviction that his Roman Catholic faith required him to be buried without cremation meant that his remains could not join those of his wife in her cremation plot. His intention was that Mrs C's remains would be interred in a full-body plot in the same cemetery so that his own remains would be buried there when his time came as part of a family grave with two of their daughters. Applying the decision in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the chancellor found several factors which were relevant to the question of whether special circumstances existed: the lapse of time since interment was only two years; a family grave was to be established; the granting of the petition would release a space at Magdalen Cemetery which would otherwise not be available; and, while Mr C's decision to inter his wife's remains in a cremated remains plot could not properly be characterised as a mistake in the sense anticipated in Blagdon, he had not simply changed his mind about the burial plot. Rather, having been required unexpectedly and in traumatic circumstances to make a sudden decision about the interment of his wife's remains, he failed to appreciate the impact of his decision upon their desire to be interred together. Mr C's ‘mistake’ alone would not have amounted to special reasons, but, when it was weighed together with the other factors and the unanimous family support for the petition, the court was persuaded that special reasons existed. [Jonathan Storey]