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Re St Cyriac, Lacock

Bristol Consistory Court: Gau Ch, 4 December 2012 Plate – sale – redundancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2013

Ruth Arlow
Ruth Arlow*
Affiliation:
Chancellor of the Diocese of Norwich
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Information

Type
Case Notes
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 250 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2013

The petitioners sought a faculty for the sale of the fifteenth-century Lacock Cup, which had been given to the church in the seventeenth century for use as a chalice. From 1962 it was loaned to the British Museum. Until 1981 the cup had occasionally been returned to the church for liturgical use. In 2006 it was realised that there was no faculty for the loan. A confirmatory faculty was granted for ten years on condition that the cup be insured for at least £1.8 million. The current petition arose from the British Museum's offer to buy the cup for £1.3 million. The parochial church council (PCC) submitted that the insurance and security required to allow safe return of the cup to Lacock, even temporarily, was unaffordable, rendering the cup redundant. Additionally, they argued that substantial sums were needed to repair the church and that insuring a valuable asset with no practical use was not consistent with the PCC's duties. The petition was opposed by a parishioner, claiming the support of signatories to a pro forma petition. He argued that the cup should be returned to Lacock for local display, challenging evidence that insurance and security were prohibitive. The chancellor refused to admit in evidence the pro forma petitions and leaflets submitted by the party opponent as they contained vague and inaccurate information and it was impossible to assess whether they accurately represented the views of the signatories.

The chancellor held that there was no financial emergency within the parish that necessitated the sale of the cup. Nevertheless, insurance and security costs were such that the cup could not be returned, rendering the cup redundant liturgically speaking and this amounted to a special reason for disposal of the cup. The connection between Lacock and the cup had been unknown to most of the village until the petition but would be maintained through records kept at the church and by the museum. The faculty was granted on condition that the sale was to the British Museum, that a replica chalice be made and kept in the parish and that the proceeds of sale be held in a charitable trust for repair and maintenance of the church. [Catherine Shelley]