Chester Consistory Court; Lomas Ch. 19 October 1993

The petitioners, the three children and executors of their deceased mother, sought a faculty to place a memorial which comprised of two horizontal pieces of sandstone with a carving of a cross and an inscription, over the grave of the deceased and over an adjoining gravespace. The court was unprepared to make a reservation of a gravespace by implication but, by a further petition brought by the son of the deceased, a faculty was granted to reserve that adjoining gravespace for the son and his wife. The present condition and layout of the graveyard and the effect which the proposed memorial would have upon it had to be taken into account but the court found that there was nothing incongruous in the proposed memorial. However the proposed memorial, with flagging and surrounding kerbstones that were similar to adjoining graves of a family to whom the deceased had been related, did not comply with existing diocesan regulations which now did not permit kerbstones around new graves, thereby easing the maintenance of churchyards. The court had to bear in mind present and future considerations and the increasing problem and cost of the maintenance of churchyards. Accordingly the faculty for the memorial was granted but without permitting the erection of the proposed kerbstones.

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