The petitioners sought a confirmatory faculty for the disposal of pews which had been removed pursuant to a temporary minor re-ordering licence in 2017 (the scope of which the court described as ‘at the extreme limit of what might be permitted’ under such a licence). Unlawfully, the pews had not been reinstalled before the expiry of the licence, although the court accepted that this was as a result of poor administration rather than deliberate contumely.

Upon removal, the pews had been stored alongside those from Bath Abbey. The storage facilities were adequate, but regrettably the pews from this church had not been adequately labelled; subsequently, they were believed to be from another church, which had been closed in 2011, and so no longer subject to the faculty jurisdiction. Finally, the entire contents of the storage were disposed of to a purchaser, who could not now be traced, for a ‘donation’ of £1,500.

The court noted that the pews remained subject to its jurisdiction, and in particular the power to make injunctions and restoration orders under sections 71 and 72 of the Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 2018. Further, legal title to the pews in the hands of their ultimate recipients remained defective because sale had been in contravention of ecclesiastical law.

Having regard to the practical reality of the church’s situation since the licence had been granted, the court decided to grant a confirmatory faculty for the removal of the pews and for the other matters, but not for disposal of the pews. This was both to avoid covering the unlawful disposal with a subsequent cloak of legality and, by keeping them subject to the faculty jurisdiction, to give life to the hope that any of the pews might subsequently be tracked down. In exercise of that jurisdiction, the court made a restoration order for six years after these facts were discovered in May 2022, as well as including in the faculty a condition that the petitioners shall use their best endeavours to locate and recover a sample number of the missing pews.