OpenStreetMap
never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, “Meditation XVII”
John Donne
(written in 1624 whilst Dean of St. Paul’s, following a potentially fatal bout of spotted fever)
A young chap that lives in West View Road, Carlton (a private, unadopted road) explained during my latest mapping session that his house is subject to Chancel Repair Liability. The object in the middling distance below is responsible for that (it is called ‘Gedling Church’):
The Carlton householder explained Chancel Tax as applying to those that “can hear the Church bells”. The full story (Wikipedia) is less romantic and much more complex, but the statement is accurate enough in it’s way. It is a uniquely English & Welsh story, involving medieval (pre-1536) church history, Henry VIII & rich men’s responsibilities that have come to haunt modern land-owners (those that own their own house).
The ‘Chancel’ is the liturgical heart of an Anglican Church (normally at the east end, and so on). Chancel Tax originates hundreds of years ago as the responsibility of land-owners to pay for the upkeep of a church (normally their parish church). Getting from those medieval times to now involves a fabulously tortured path, and the consequences can be likewise.
This all came to a head for Adrian and Gail Wallbank in 2009 when they were forced to sell their home. A couple of decades earlier they out-of-the-blue had received a bill upon their doormat for £100,000 GBP of Chancel Tax (the same value at that time as their home) and had decided to fight it through the courts. It took 18 years for them to lose their case; they then had to find an additional £250,000 GBP for legal costs (£350,000 GBP total; $454,000 USD, €408,000 Euro currently).
This is a curious connection to my earlier Diary entry on Ecclesiastical Parishes. Wikipedia states that there are ~15,000 such parishes, of which 5,200 are responsible for chancel repair. Of those, only a minority have exercised their right to deploy this Tax if required. A 2014 House of Lords bill, if enacted, will finally remove all such rights to do so.
Most interesting (unless your home is threatened by it).
讨论
Warin61 于 2016年09月22日 22:15 的评论
Wow!
The church authorities who have forced these people out of their home should be ashamed of themselves. I would hope that the local papers would have covered the story. And that the local parishioners are aware of the churches action.
Reminds me of the window tax.
zarl 于 2016年09月23日 06:58 的评论
Another interesting detail: chancel is very close to the German term “Kanzel” (which is the pulpit).
skquinn 于 2016年09月23日 21:00 的评论
Hooray for separation of church and state in the US.
alexkemp 于 2016年09月23日 22:40 的评论
Hi @skquinn
I wrote the piece on Ecclesiastical Parishes after interviewing the Revd at St James, Porchester (I believe that he may also have a position at Gedling church). After he explained the situation re: marriages I said “Ah, so there’s still not a full separation between church & state yet, then”. I knew nothing of the Chancel Tax at that stage, but he gave me a very dirty look.
I’m quite sure that congregations in the US are responsible for financially supporting their church - after all, who else is going to do it? In the UK, the Chancel Tax would originally have been perfectly reasonable, as those that owned land had pots of money to help support their church. Today, every middle-class family aspires to own their own home, but very few attend church. They worship a different god altogether.
The tragedy for the Wallbanks was in part to live in a parish that had been almost entirely denuded of parishioners, which meant that they had a perfectly unfair portion of the tax to pay. The sole bright spot in their story may be that, because of it, the Chancel tax may become the Cancelled tax.
wyrmon 于 2016年09月25日 01:45 的评论
I see the road in the patch, too, as we have in Kazakhstan. is that for the place shown in the photo?
alexkemp 于 2016年09月26日 15:11 的评论
Hi @wyrmon, I’ve just checked for you. Whilst the the Church is the same one that would claim any Chancel tax (‘Gedling’), the road in the photo above is different. That road is Chatsworth Avenue. The photo was taken from just above where Cambridge Street and Burlington Road meet Chatsworth Avenue on the northern slope at the eastern end of Marshall Hill. The embarrassing thing for Gedling Borough Council is that all 3 of those roads are their responsibility, and thus they are responsible for those useless road patches.
The chap that I spoke to lives in West End View, which is further to the east; at that point Marshall Hill has sloped down & a valley + a road (Gedling Road) passes through North-South. This is a photo of West End View:
It is typical for unadopted roads like West End View to be in a very poor state of repair, but you may notice that West End View is in better shape than that patch of Chatsworth Avenue!
alexkemp 于 2016年09月26日 15:18 的评论
Gaah! The street is West View Road, not West End View (we cannot edit mistakes in comments, unlike posts).