WRITING in the current issue of his parish magazine, Archdeacon
Escreet, vicar of the Church of the Ascension, Blackheath, says in
reference to the deposition of the cremated remains of a former
parishioner in a little vessel in the south wall of the church,
that "the Chancellor of the diocese . . . issued the necessary
'faculty.' This is, we believe, the first faculty of the kind; we
hope it will not be the last. In old days the bodies of our
forefathers were laid to rest in the churchyard, and there returned
to their elements - 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.' This
thought hallows the ground and mingles with the thoughts of the
worshippers. It is this that often makes the village churchyard tug
at our hearts. So it may be, as cremation becomes increasingly
used, that the remains of those we love, placed in the walls of the
churches, will remind us of the unseen company with whom we unite
our praises around the throne of God."
The Archdeacon is no doubt correct with respect to the use of
the walls of a church for the purpose of a columbarium, but it will
be remembered that some years ago the Chancellor of the diocese of
London granted a faculty for the interment of an urn beneath the
floor of a church, but refused one for its insertion within the
walls. Whether the effect of a columbarium will be precisely the
same as that of a churchyard with its sacred associations remains
to be seen. From a purely aesthetic point of view, it is a matter
for considerable doubt.