The petitioner sought the exhumation of her late husband’s remains from the consecrated portion of a municipal cemetery for reinterment in a churchyard, on the basis that it was hard for her to visit the cemetery and tend the grave. The cemetery authoriry had given its permission, but the incumbent of the church had not, on the basis that it represented a violation of the permanence of Christian burial. Without that permission, and in the absence of a legal right to be interred in the churchyard, the proposed reinterment would not be possible.

The petitioner had mentioned, in passing, a ‘family plot’ in the churchyard. The creation or use of a family grave is one of the factors which can be taken into account by the court when considering a petition for exhumation: Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299. It transpired that there was a grave in the churchyard containing the remains of the petitioner’s father and brother, and where she wished her own remains to be interred when her time came. While there were no other factors militating in favour of the grant of a faculty, the court determined that this was an appropriate case for a faculty.

Two issues remained. First, the proposal still lacked the incumbent’s consent; the incumbent was invited to reconsider her earlier view in the light of the present judgment, but consent remained a matter for her alone (as it would when, in time, it came to the interment of the petitioner’s remains). In the absence of a right of interment or the incumbent’s consent, the faculty would be of no effect.

Secondly, the petitioner had sought permission to transfer the existing memorial to the family grave, or else to leave it in the cemetery. It was not appropriate to have two memorials on one grave, or to leave it in the cemetery once the remains of the commemorated person had been exhumed. It may be that the stone could be adapted for re-use. The court noted that the memorial already on the family grave did not comply with the Churchyard Regulations, and the need for a new memorial arising from the interment of the exhumed remains and the future interment of the petitioner’s remains provided an opportunity for regularising the position. The removal of the old memorial before any exhumation was therefore made a condition of the faculty; any replacement would, no doubt, make provision for additional names and would be considered according to the Churchyard Regulations in force for the time being.