THE Rector and PCC of Christ Church, Spitalfields, have been granted a school to make use of a part of the church’s disputed churchyard as a faculty playground.
The way is now clear for Christ Church to enter right into a latest management agreement with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in respect of a part of the closed churchyard, which is able to enable the borough to license back a bit to the governing body of Christ Church C of E Primary School, to be used as a playground.
This land has had a chequered history. The burial ground of the church was full by 1857, and was closed by order in council. It was converted to a public garden by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association in 1892, however the church school was built on a big proportion of this. In 1970, the borough was granted permission to convert a part of the remaining churchyard into an adventure playground, and to erect a constructing to be used by children using the churchyard. The church itself, although closed in 1957 and near derelict, was brought back into use largely owing to the efforts of the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields, formed in 1976.
In February 2012, a school was granted for the constructing often known as the Garden Building, which, in 2014, was occupied by a nursery school (News, 9 January 2015). The erection of the Garden Building attracted extensive litigation (News, 3 March 2017), and, in 2019, the Court of Arches ordered its demolition by 1 February 2029 (News, 29 January 2019). An undertaking was then provided that certain parts of the land can be kept open to the general public during daytime.
Plan of the churchyard utilized in the judgment. A, B, and C are to be open garden areas, enlarged with F and G when the Garden Building is demolished. D and E may have limited public access
There had been objections to the present petition for a school by several parties opponent (“the objectors”), including Spitalfields Open Spaces. They submitted that, in 1859, the church had created an irrevocable charitable trust for public recreation by applying for a school dedicating the disused burial ground “in perpetuity as a lawn or ornamental ground . . . to secure an open space in a crowded dense population” and that that “public” trust was confirmed by “long use” and confirmed by the Open Spaces laws culminating within the Open Spaces Act 1906.
The objectors submitted that that “charitable trust” could possibly be varied or terminated only by a scheme issued by the Charity Commission, which had never happened.
The objectors argued that the borough’s powers required it to administer and control the open space in order to look at the needs set out in earlier management agreements and the Open Spaces Acts, particularly that all the space must be maintained as a public garden, and to make sure that all the open space was kept open in any respect times for the general public for open recreation. This would remove the joint control by the church and the borough proposed by the Rector and PCC.
In a preliminary judgment, the Chancellor of the diocese of London, the Worshipful David Etherington KC, decided that the college petition was a matter for the consistory court to make a decision. He held that the college of 1859, and in addition the management agreements made before 1949, had no continuing relevance, and that the consistory court had jurisdiction to grant the petition and in addition to make a decision points of civil law which arose in reference to it.
In a second judgment, the Chancellor granted the college in exercise of that jurisdiction, approving a latest management agreement with the borough. This provides for a lot of the churchyard, including the part now occupied by the Garden Building (after its demolition), to be managed as a public open space under the Open Spaces Act 2006. Some parts of the land would, as before, be used as a playground and tennis court by the adjoining primary school, subject to the general public having access during non-school hours by arrangement with the church.
