Two lodges stand within the boundary of Grangetown Cemetery. The area immediately surrounding each lodge was marked by hedging and used as a private garden for its respective lodge. The garden areas were consecrated; the lodges were not. Although interments had taken place within the garden areas, there were no memorials in those areas and no remains had been interred therein for more than one hundred years. Sunderland City Council, which owned the cemetery, wished to sell the lodges for residential use and sought a faculty permitting the sale or lease of the garden areas for use as private gardens for the lodges. The Council submitted that this would regularise what was the historic de facto position. The chancellor rejected that submission, finding that, if the earlier unauthorised use was inconsistent with the decent and respectful treatment of the interred remains, then no faculty would issue to permit such use to continue. Although the court cannot authorise the alienation of consecrated ground from its sacred uses, it can, in suitable circumstances, authorise its use for secular purposes which are consonant with modern requirements. Any such use must be consistent with the decent and respectful treatment of the remains interred therein. This included use as a private garden. A faculty was granted permitting the use of the garden areas as private gardens on condition that the land remained vested in the Council. The use of the garden was to be subject to a licence stipulating that it was to be kept neat and tidy by the occupier and no structure was to be erected on the land without prior approval of the court. [RA]