The incumbent and churchwardens sought a faculty to introduce between eight and ten sheep into the largest of three moorland graveyards, known as the New Graveyard, for the purposes of managing the grass and vegetation. The sheep would be on loan from a local farmer, who would care for them and manage their movement, with the use of electric fencing supplied by the Parochial Church Council. The Diocesan Advisory Committee and the insurers supported the use of sheep to graze the graveyard. In response to the public notice there was one objector who feared that the sheep would eat flowers from graves and suggested that introducing sheep to graveyards was disrespectful to the consecrated ground. She argued that a £10 annual levy payable by each grave owner would be sufficient to pay someone to cut the grass at least fortnightly. The chancellor considered the objections even though it transpired that the objector's husband was buried in an adjacent graveyard. The faculty was granted on the basis that the sheep would be well managed, reducing the risk of unwanted flower consumption, and that in a rural area such as Saddleworth allowing a limited number of well-managed sheep to graze the graveyard was not a sign of disrespect. [Catherine Shelley]