Mixed reception to churchyard abode

Press, 23 August 1984, Page 6

Mixed reception to churchyard abode

NZPA staff correspondent London Different groups taking up residence in English cnurch grounds are meeting with very different receptions. On the one hand, the rare and endangered butterflies that have retreated from chemically polluted countryside to the sanctity of Anglican graveyards have been welcomed. On the other, a group almost as rare but by no means endangered, London’s superwealthy, have run into problems as they buy up disused churches on plum sites to convert to luxury flats. Seven conversions are now under way in London. The most notable is in the fashionable area, where the flats are being offered at up to £1 million (JNZ2.65 million) each.

The schemes have the blessing of the Church Commissioners, the group of clergy and lay people which manages the Church of England’s finances. But some members of a commission of inquiry set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, to study inner-city housing problems say that the Church is not acting with a social conscience in selling the sites to developers. According to the “Sunday Times” newspaper, the issue will be thrashed out when the commission meets Dr Runcie soon to give a halfway report on its two-year inquiry. Some members will give the Archbishop a paper calling for more redundant churches to be used for cheap housing, the paper said. The Church Commissioners say they must follow “strict financial criteria” in

dealing with Church assets. They explain that profits on their big commercial sales are channeled into new churches. Meanwhile, the British Butterfly Conservation Society wants clergymen to maintain parts of churchyards in a state which will help the newly arrived winged visitors thrive. A society spokesman said that overgrown churchyards might be a slight embarrassment to some but would be viewed more sympathetically if people knew what a valuable refuge they provided for such butterflies as the marbled white, the adonis blue, and swallowtads. The society plans a national survey of churchyards to ascertain the actual and potential butterfly population.