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Re St Michael the Archangel, Warfield

Oxford Consistory Court: Hodge Ch, 29 June 2025 [2025] ECC Oxf 6 Exhumation – temporary exhumation – immediate reinterment in same grave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2026

David Willink
David Willink*
Affiliation:
Barrister, Lamb Chambers, London, UK
*
Email: davidwillink@lambchambers.co.uk
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Information

Type
Case Note
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 2026 , pp. 149 - 150
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Copyright
© Ecclesiastical Law Society 2026.

The petitioner sought a faculty for the temporary exhumation of cremated remains to facilitate a second full body burial in an existing family grave. The deceased’s first wife had been buried in April 1998, with her mother’s cremated remains subsequently interred in the same grave in 2005. The deceased’s surviving widow wished to inter his body in the grave of his first wife, requiring temporary exhumation of the mother-in-law’s cremated remains to enable the husband’s burial to proceed.

The Area Dean did not support the petition, expressing pastoral sympathy but concluding that temporary exhumation followed by immediate reinterment could not circumvent the theological presumption of permanence in Christian burial. Applying Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the court recognised that Christian burial is intended to be permanent and that remains should not be treated as ‘portable’. However, the court followed the approach in Re Shinfield Cemetery [2022] ECC Oxf 1 and earlier authorities including Re Mitcham Road Cemetery, Croydon [2021] ECC Swk 2, holding that the rigours of the usual inhibition against exhumation had questionable application to cases of temporary exhumation carried out solely to facilitate further burial in the same grave, with immediate reinterment of the exhumed remains.

In exercising its discretion, the court identified several special factors: the sole purpose was creating a family grave; the exhumation would be entirely temporary and ephemeral; all relatives consented; the former incumbent who knew all parties supported the proposal; the Area Dean was pastorally sympathetic despite legal concerns; the time lapse was explicable as no need for the exhumation arose until the husband’s death; and practical arrangements were realistic.

A faculty was granted subject to conditions requiring the exhumation to occur immediately before the husband’s burial, keeping the container out of sight of mourners, treating the remains with due dignity throughout, and reinterring immediately after the funeral concluded.