Holy Trinity Church, Dalton, and its churchyard had originally been conveyed to the Church Building Commissioners by Edward Collingwood on 1 October 1837 as a chapel of ease for the parish of Newburn, and consecrated by the Bishop of Durham. The church has a burial vault and the dispute was about its ownership. It was agreed that the consecration of a church or chapel extends to the vaults beneath it and that the vault was therefore consecrated. The 1837 conveyance expressly excepted and reserved the vault to the grantor, Edward Collingwood, and the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) found that, on the proper construction of the conveyance, the grantor retained the paper title to the burial vault. However, the FTT also found that, since the last burial in 1940, successive incumbents had been in physical possession and control of the vault and that Collingwood's successors had therefore lost their title because of the incumbents’ adverse possession. The church had been made redundant and closed in 2004 and the second respondent, Newcastle Diocesan Board of Finance (DBF), wanted to make a scheme for its alternative residential use and dispose of it. It was common ground that the vault was at all times accessed from the interior of the church. Before the church was closed for worship, the door had been left unlocked and there had been no bar to access. After the church was closed, it had been kept locked for reasons of security and safety, but the Church Commissioners had never intended to exclude Collingwood's descendants from accessing the interior. The appellants argued that there was no evidence that either the benefice or the DBF had ever taken possession of the vault or had demonstrated the requisite intention to do so. They also relied upon the various written acknowledgments of their title. The respondents argued that, at all material times since 1940, either the incumbent or the DBF had been in exclusive physical possession and control of the church building, including the vault.

The Upper Tribunal did not accept that the incumbent or the DBF had been in exclusive physical possession and control of the vault since 1940, nor that they had intended to possess it, nor had the DBF been in exclusive physical possession and control of the vault since the church was closed in 2004. Locking the doors had not put the paper title owners on notice that they were being excluded from possession. In short, the respondents had never taken or been in possession of the vault, nor had they demonstrated any intention to do so to the exclusion of the paper title owners. The appeal was allowed. [Frank Cranmer]