Re St Bartholomew, Horley

The deceased's cremated remains were buried some 90 yards from the grave of his wife who had died very unexpectedly 13 months after the death of the deceased. Their four children sought the exhumation of the deceased's remains for their reinterment in his wife's grave. Given his wife's expressed desire to be buried, rather than cremated, it had not been possible to bury the wife's remains together with those of the deceased in the garden of remembrance. The petition was supported by the incumbent and the archdeacon. The chancellor considered the guidance of the Court of Arches in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299. He noted that the proposed reinterment was expressive of family unity and also freed up a space in the garden of remembrance. He noted the very short period between the death of the deceased and that of his wife and commented that the petition would have had much less weight had a period of ten years elapsed between the two deaths. The chancellor categorised the decision to inter the deceased's remains in the garden of remembrance as a ‘mistake’ for the purposes of Blagdon Cemetery and stated that ‘the correction of what can appropriately be described as a mistake within a short period does not seem to contradict the norm of the permanence of Christian burial’. The chancellor considered the similar facts in Re Christ Church, Alsager [1999] Fam 142 and considered that if the two sets of remains had had to be interred in different churchyards the petition would be stronger. Nevertheless, he found that the petition derived some strength from the fact that the deceased and his wife were buried so close together but separately, and considered that might be particularly upsetting to the family. The chancellor held that special circumstances existed and the faculty was granted. [RA]