The petitioner sought a faculty for the introduction of a memorial headstone over his father's grave. The memorial was made of honed granite, a stone not permitted by the diocesan churchyard regulations or by the policy of the parish itself. The Diocesan Advisory Committee did not recommend the proposal, supporting the parish policy, which had limited honed granite memorials to one row of the graveyard and had not allowed them since 2010. The petitioner explained that the stone had already been made by a memorial mason more used to working in the Diocese of Birmingham, which did allow such stone. The Coventry regulations had not been checked but the stone had been prepared in the genuine but mistaken belief that it was acceptable. The chancellor held that a powerful reason was needed before the introduction of a memorial which did not conform with the regulations could be permitted. Considering the categories of exceptional circumstances set out in Re St Mary Kingswinford [2001] 1 WLR 927, the chancellor accepted that there was a genuine error and that there were already a few stones of honed granite in the churchyard. However, he held that there were insufficient granite stones to make refusal of an exception unconscionable and accordingly upheld the policy and refused the faculty. [Catherine Shelley]