By an interim faculty issued on 15 June 2020 ([2020] Ecc Chi 4, (2021) 23 Ecc LJ 122), the chancellor had sanctioned the temporary removal of two headstones from the churchyard of St Margaret, Rottingdean, to protect them from possible damage or destruction; the inscriptions included a highly derogatory racist expression (reproduced in full at paragraph 7 of the substantive judgment) which was likely to cause offence. The petitioners were the vicar and churchwardens and the Archdeacon of Brighton and Lewes. The heirs-at-law of those memorialised by the headstones were joined as additional parties.
On 1 February 2021 the chancellor handed down his substantive judgment. The petitioners had sought a faculty confirming the temporary removal of the headstones in accordance with the interim faculty (and their subsequent boarding up), authorising the recutting of the inscription on each headstone to replace the offending term with the expression ‘music hall artiste’, authorising the addition on one of the headstones of a further inscription giving details of another family member whose cremated remains were interred in the grave, and permitting the reintroduction of the headstones into the churchyard in the positions they previously occupied.
The chancellor pointed out that, although churchyards were in the legal ownership of the incumbent, and the Parochial Church Council was responsible for their maintenance, a headstone belonged to the individual who commissioned and paid for it and thereafter to the heir-at-law of the person or persons commemorated (under section 66 of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018). He also noted that both Historic England and the Church of England's Cathedral and Church Buildings Division were in the process of drawing up policies and guidance on ‘contested heritage’.
Where questions arise as to the compatibility of a memorial with Christian teaching and doctrine, the chancellor suggested that working through the following questions might help to identify the nature and complexity of the issue and the practical outcomes which were likely to be acceptable to the community at large:
i. Who is the legal owner of the memorial?
ii. What, if anything, does the owner want to happen to it?
iii. What is the heritage significance of the memorial?
iv. What is the justification for any change?
v. What are the options? For example: (a) do nothing; (b) interpretation and contextualisation; (c) addition or alteration; (d) relocation; (e) removal to storage; (f) disposal to a third party; and (g) destruction.
vi. Which is the most appropriate option in this instance?
vii. What are the reasons for the decision?
viii. Will a faculty or other authority be required?
ix. Is the threshold test in Duffield likely to be satisfied such that a faculty may be granted by the chancellor? If not, then a different option may need to be considered.
The chancellor held that a faculty should be issued, subject to conditions which included: that, prior to any works being undertaken, a high-resolution photographic record of the two headstones be created and duly archived; that the treatment of the headstones also be documented and duly archived; that the foregoing records, together with all of the research carried out to date, be retained by the parish and the local record office and be made available for anyone interested in researching the lives of Elliott and Banford and their importance in music-hall history; and that an interpretative folder or other display, approved by the chancellor, be displayed permanently in the church. [Frank Cranmer]
