The Funerary Monuments Group
Visitors to this page may find the Safety in Cemeteries web page a useful background with various examples of concerns on the appropriate care of memorials in a health and safety context, indeed many of those concerns led to the formation of this Group
chairman Dr Henry Will [Ford Park Plymouth]
secretary Paul Stubbs [Lister Lane Cemetery, All Souls, Halifax and Calderdale MBC]
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Members
Julian Litten [Hardwick Road Cemetery, Kings Lynn]
Richard Keesing [York Cemetery Trust]
John Avery [Southampton Old Cemetery]
Mike Bretton [Wombwell]
Bill Brinkley [Hyde Park, Doncaster]
Michael Parnell [Hyde Park Doncaster]
Francesca Jordan [Oak Lane]
Don Bianco [English Heritage and West Norwood Cemetery ]
Robert Moor [Truro Diocese, Living Churchyards and Cornwall Wildlife Trust]
Robert Stephenson [Kensal Green]
Mark Shopland [The Rosary, Norwich]
Barry Smith [Kensal Green]
Timothy Toghill [Brookwood Cemetery]
Joyce Wilcox [Dewsbury Cemetery Action Group]
Nick Williams [The Rosary, Norwich]
At the 2006 AGM held at Nunhead, members agreed to set up a group of members to look at best practice and to advise the Federation on safety, restoration and maintenance.
On 15th February 2007 the inaugural meeting of The Funerary Monuments Group met at Brompton Cemetery. Henry Will [unfortunately absent due to illness] was elected chairman and Paul Stubbs the secretary of the Group.
The Group discussed the objects of the Group and made the following recommendations:
1 To advise members of the Federation on all matters pertaining to the safety, ownership and protection of monuments and other related issues.
2 To disseminate examples of both good and bad practice relating to monuments which come to the notice of the group.
3 To keep members of the Federation informed of public policy statements and publications relevant to the management of the monuments.
4 To promote good design and conservation practice of funerary sculpture.
5 To achieve the above objects by regular communication with Federation members.
Method of proceeding / respective roles
- It was agreed informally, that the method of proceeding would be by six monthly meetings- either a meeting or by electronic communications - whichever proved to be the best way forward.
- A discussion ensued on various legal points about the ownership of monuments, grave rights and freeholder tenure issues
- The wholesale destruction of monuments by some local authorities and the methodology used for the testing of memorials i.e Topple Testing and other similar technical methods.
- The 'listing' by English Heritage [or the appointed national authority] and what is legally the curtilege of the monument and / or cemetery site
- The ensuing issues with graves where the freehold had been sold and the family had now dispersed and not able to be contacted about the future conservation of any memorials.
Broken railing courtesy Father Edouardo.Morguefile.com
The next meeting has been arranged for 16th October 2008 and will be held in London.
Notes/ Minutes of meeting held on 31 May 2007 at York Cemetery
In attendance
Chairman Dr Henry Will [Ford Park Cemetery Trust, Plymouth]
Richard Keesing [York Cemetery Trust]
John Avery [Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery]
Don Bianco [English Heritage & Friends of West Norwood Cemetery]
[Observer] Pam Gray [Friends of west Norwood]
Secretary Paul Stubbs [Friends of Lister Lane Cemetery & CMBC]
1 Introduction and apologies
The Chairman Henry Will welcomed the members to York Cemetery. Apologies had been received from Julian Litten [ill health], Tim Toghill of Brookwood Cemetery and Robert Moor of Living Churchyards.
2 Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes/notes of the inaugural meeting of the group at Brompton Cemetery on 15th February 2007 having been circulated to all group members were agreed.
3 Matters and issues arising from the minutes/notes
The Chairman referred the group to Item 3 - Method of proceeding/ respective roles
The group discussed the various items as follows:
Item 1 " A discussion ensued on various legal points about the ownership of the memorials, grave rights and freehold tenure issues."
An agreement was reached that this is of particular interest to most members of the organisation. Issues occur especially with the transfer or indeed lack of information about the freehold tenure on graves because no information is available about the line of ownership. Whilst this would be a civil case in law should any family object to the repairs to a monument, Don Bianco did confirm that English Heritage legal team were actually looking into this issue - but at this time no information is available.
Tracing relatives through old records is virtually impossible and health and safety issues arising from unsafe/dangerous monuments could be used as the reason for undertaking repairs. Nearly all "Friends groups" would have extreme financial difficulties in paying for repairs to make monuments safe.
Don Bianco did confirm that perhaps a solution lay with the law concerning abandoned property i.e 19 years and 1 day the law assumes that the property has been abandoned.
Item 2 "The wholesale destruction of monuments by some local authorities and the methodology used for testing memorials eg Topple Testing and other similar technical methods.
The group agreed that such destruction was never in the interests of the public and that all Friends groups are recommended to obtain copies of the Local Government Ombudsman Report " Special Report Memorial Safety in local authority cemeteries" - issued June 2006 and available on the Ombudsman website.
In addition Paul Stubbs agreed to seek permission from the five Local authorities in the Black Country to circulate their new memorial testing protocol in which the testing force is reduced to 25 kg and a more sensitive and sympathetic attitude is taken for the whole scheme.
Item 3 "The listing by English Heritage and what is legally the curtilage of the monument and / or cemetery site"
Don Bianco confirmed that the solicitors for English Heritage were also looking into this item but no information was available at this time for circulation.
However he did confirm that he would draft out a paper on this particular subject.
Curtilage can be defined as the actual footprint of the grave although the Consistory Court it had ruled that at the West Norwood Cemetery in London that the curtilege actually meant the whole cemetery grounds.
Item 4 "The ensuing issues with graves where the freehold had been sold and the family had now dispersed and not now able to be contacted about future conservation of any memorial"
Similar comment as given to Item 1 above
