CHURCHYARD of CHRIST CHURCH SPITALFIELDS And

Before: Chancellor June Rodgers, sitting as a Deputy Chancellor of the Diocese of London IN THE CONSISTORY COURT OF THE DIOCESE OF LONDON IN THE MATTER OF A BUILDING IN THE CHURCHYARD OF CHRIST CHURCH SPITALFIELDS and IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION FOR A RESTORATION ORDER AND A PETITION FOR A CONFIRMATORY FACULTY B E T W E E N:- (1)The Governing Body of Christ Church School (2) The Rev’d. Mr. Andrew Rider Kim Gooding, Will Spring and Richard Wasserfall (Rector, Church Wardens and former Church Warden) (3) The London Diocesan Board for Schools (4) The London Borough of Tower Hamlets (Building Parties) Applicants for a Confirmatory Faculty & Respondents to the Application for a Restoration Order and (1) Spitalfields Open Space ( S.O.S.) (2) Christine Whaite (Open Space Parties) (3) Professor Kerry Downes (4) and others Applicants for a Restoration Order & Respondents to the Application for a Confirmatory Faculty 1 JUDGMENT I DIRECT THAT PURSUANT TO CPR PD 39A PARA 6.1 NO OFFICIAL SHORTHAND NOTE SHALL BE TAKEN OF THIS JUDGMENT AND THAT COPIES OF THIS VERSION AS HANDED DOWN MAY BE TREATED AS AUTHENTIC 1. For a church not yet 300 years old Christ Church Spitalfields has had a chequered history. The church lies just outside the boundary of the City of London in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, the Council of which is one of the Parties in this case. The church is situated to the east of Liverpool Street Station, and to the west of Brick Lane. To-day, it stands on the boundary between the expanding office blocks of the City, and the curry houses of the Muslim community of the Spitalfields/Bangla Town Ward of Tower Hamlets. The gentrification of the streets surrounding the church from the 1970s onwards not only escalated house prices but also provided another layer of residents, many of whom were fascinated by the architecture of the streets surrounding Christ Church, and the architecture of the church itself, which they did much to save and restore. In the last few years there has been not only salvage and restoration of the housing surrounding the church, but also changes in the local economy. The old Spitalfields Fruit and Vegetable market now houses trendy wine bars and bijou stalls. Brick Lane has its curry houses. The Trumans Brewery site, a little to the north of the church, has become a tourist attraction to rival Covent Garden. The lanes of Artillery Row and around cater for both office workers and tourists, with restaurants and specialist shops. It has not always been thus. The church was by the early 1950s onwards on the point of being demolished, having become a virtual wreck. It has, structurally, been saved, and the parish is now an active and successful worshipping community, rooted within an area which itself has undergone immense social change. It is this success which, far from uniting the parishioners and the other residents living in its shadow, has given rise to a dispiriting and bitter dispute which has resulted in an application for Judicial Review against the Council, an 2 application to the Attorney General with a view to having the Rector criminally prosecuted, a successful appeal to the Court of Arches, which subsequently resulted in a ten day Consistory Court hearing before me, several thousand pages of documents, lever-arch files of legal authorities and costs, estimated at the beginning of this hearing (which itself doubled its initially estimated time) of over half a million pounds on the side of the objectors and about a quarter of a million pounds on the side of the other parties, costs that many, many churches struggling to fund repairs or necessary extensions, as I said at the opening of this hearing, can only read of and weep. 2. THE PARTIES On one side of this dispute are ranged the following: the Governing Body of Christ Church voluntary aided Church of England School, the Rev’d. Mr Andrew Rider, who is the Rector of Christ Church, the current Churchwardens and a past Churchwarden of the church, the London Diocesan Board for Schools (LDBS), the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH), and Graysons Venues Ltd (the latter not being involved in the main case, there being subsidiary litigation which was adjourned at the beginning of this case, and on which I have heard no oral evidence). Although each of these bodies has a slightly different position in the litigation, which I will deal with individually in the course of the evidence, overall they seek a Confirmatory Faculty to authorise keeping an existing building currently standing in and on the disused graveyard of Christ Church, the “new building”. 3. On the other side are an organisation called Spitalfields Open Spaces (SOS), and individual objectors, both formal and informal, some parishioners, some not. They all seek a Restoration Order to demolish the new building, thus providing for a greater open space than is presently available in the graveyard. They wish to restore the churchyard as an open space. Many of these objectors are members of, or connected with, other local bodies, such as the Spitalfields 3 Trust and the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields (FoCCS). Those last two bodies in themselves are not Parties (nor as representative bodies did they even appear as a witnesses), one reason, perhaps, being the restrictions placed on the ability of charities to spend charitable money on litigation unless strictly within their objects. 4. To set out here the full cast list of persons involved in this case would begin to resemble the dramatis personae of a 19th century Russian novel, so that for ease of reference I will adopt the shorthand used by many of the Parties during the case and refer to them respectively as the Building Parties/Petitioners and the Open Space Parties/Objectors. This is a simplification of the arguments, both legal and aesthetic, of the individual Parties. In the course of this judgment, I will address the respective nuances of their individual arguments when considering their evidence. In the documents before me, many other people from Council officials, elected Councillors, objectors and supporters of each side, amenity societies, both local and national, make cameo appearances on paper, but these, too, have helped in trying to clarify the whole of this sorry tale. 5. By reason of the interest in this particular parish church and its well known role in English architectural history, this judgment will review, in much greater detail than normally required, the history and background of the church. I more than bear in mind the need to consider and identify the architectural and/or historic interest in respect of this church as set out in the judgment of the Court of Arches in St John the Baptist Penshurst (Arches Ct, 9 March 2015). Indeed, it is this very importance that lies at the root of the whole case, certainly as far as the objectors are concerned. Others involved have been more interested in the legal interface between the civil law involving open spaces, and the duties upon local authorities and other bodies when obtaining public finances for building on such an area. From the point of ecclesiastical law, this problem has become the more acute in that the building complained of has actually been built, at the cost of just under £1.5 million. The objectors seek to 4 have it knocked down, which demolition in itself would be costly. These latter arguments only surfaced relatively late in this case, as it was the aesthetic, and not the legal position, which dominated the early years of this litigation. 6. Because of what has happened at Christ Church Spitalfields, there has been interest both locally, nationally and in the media. As in many campaigns, views have been expressed, both orally and on paper, on all sides, which have generated more heat than light. There have been allegations of bad faith, of secrecy, of class conflict, of incompetence, and of fanaticism on all sides. I therefore have decided, as I have said, to set out in much greater length than might have been otherwise necessary, in so far as I can establish it, from the voluminous documents and oral evidence before me, just what has happened up to this present hearing. These extensive documented details of the history of this litigation were not, as I understand it, before the Court of Arches, where discrete specific points were successfully argued by the objectors. This present judgment may provide a clearer overview as to what has happened (and how it has happened) for many people, both those who have had an interest in this church and local residents, but who may not have been made fully conversant with the events leading up to this Court case, nor with the needs of the wider community which this church serves. There have also been, as I have said, accusations of secrecy and of a lack of consultation, and I have read smearing allegations against many of the people and bodies involved. For this reason I have set out from their own recorded words and documents of the Parties themselves (obtained from the results of their own requests for full disclosure) as full a history of what has happened in this matter, and also because, until the factual matrix became clear, the legal position could not be analysed fully and properly. I have, therefore, set out below in their own words, emails and letters, what the Parties have said and claimed during the course of this whole dispute. This judgment is a public document to be available on the Diocesan and Christ Church websites, and to be displayed in the church in printed form, for the 5 avoidance of further inaccurate gossip and misleading rumours.

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