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Shared use of Church Buildings or is Nothing Sacred?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 July 2008
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It may soon be possible, courtesy Cameron Ch as she then was, not only to lunch (as many already do) but also to dine at the crypt restaurant below St Mary-le-Bow, and to enjoy beer, cider or wine with your meal. That is a thoroughly secular use of part of a church; and it is something which would not have been permitted until relatively recent times. To Cock burn CJ in 1869 there was a self-evident distinction between ‘purposes purely secular’ and ‘those of an ecclesiastical character’, and ‘nothing short of an Act of Parliament can authorise the conversion of consecrated ground to secular purposes’. In one of his early judgments, sitting as Deputy-Chancellor, George Newsom QC declined to allow the use of consecrated land for an NCP car park, referring to consecration as ‘this special status [which] has been a striking privilege of the Church of England. It is no part of the duty of this court to seek to whittle it away’. The aim of this Paper is to explore the erosion of the divide between ‘secular’ and ‘ecclesiastical’ purposes, and to suggest that it offers a novel role for the Church both in the countryside and in towns and cities. I also touch briefly on some of the problems of rating, planning and listed building law which arise.
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References
2 Re St Mary-le-Bow, London [2001] 1 WLR 1507, 6 Ecc LJ 164, London Cons Ct.Google Scholar
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62 ‘The Community Use of Churches’ (2000) 5 Ecc LJ 348 at 349.Google Scholar
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