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Re St Mary, Newick

Chichester Consistory Court: Hill Ch, July 2008 Bishopsgate questions – necessity – memorial – inscription

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2008

Justin Gau
Affiliation:
Barrister, Deputy Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln
Ruth Arlow
Affiliation:
Barrister, Deputy Chancellor of the Dioceses of Chichester and Norwich
Will Adam
Affiliation:
Rector of Girton, Ely Diocesan Ecumenical Officer
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Abstract

Type
Case Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2008

In deciding whether a glass screen should be installed as a memorial, the chancellor took the opportunity to review the principle of ‘necessity’ as adumbrated in St Helen's, Bishopsgate.Footnote 3 Having reviewed the authorities, the chancellor stated that the word ‘necessity’ should not be taken in isolation as an abstract concept. It should be read in its clear context, which carries the wider concept of pastoral wellbeing or some other compelling reason. Thus the Bishopsgate approach, however articulated, continues to impose a high standard of proof on those who seek to discharge the presumption against change applicable in the case of all listed buildings, yet admits of factors concerning the role of the church as a local centre of worship and mission, which is central to the operation of the faculty jurisdiction in consequence of the overriding consideration set out in section 1 of the Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1991. However, the chancellor declined to authorise the proposed inscription, which, in his judgment, spoke more of the benefactor than the persons in whose memory the screen was to be installed. He required this aspect to be revisited. [JG]

References

3 Noted at (1993) 3 Ecc LJ 256.