| Description | A faculty was a licence granted by the Bishop to authorise alterations and additions to the fabric of churches and other church buildings, and to churchyards. This series of faculty petitions and related documents date from 1633; in the c. 17th and c. 18th they often relate to pews, galleries and burial vaults. The earlier documents tend to be rather scrappy and miscellaneous and are probably incomplete, probably no great regularity of procedure was demanded, because little work of the kind – at least of an extensive nature – was done. But in the 19th century very extensive church additions and restorations became common, and the documents and procedure became more or less stereotyped. In the 20th century the situation has changed again – extensive alterations have ceased to be at all common, but the flow of faculty documents has increased, because they are now required for almost all alterations, however minor. Some petitions in the early bundles relate to the improvement of benefices. These are generally found in the series of Glebe exchanges (D1/3/1) and Parsonage House mortgages (D1/11). Also included in the early bundles are papers relating to disputes over the allocation of pews in churches (see also D1/41/4) and petitions relating to matters of religious duty of clergy.
The main types of document found in this series are: the Petition for a Faculty, addressed to the Bishop and setting out the reasons why the changes are wanted and what is proposed to be done. This is usually accompanied by detailed plans, elevations, etc., mostly of the new building but occasionally of the existing one too; and the architect’s Specification. Then there is the Proclamation Citatory (referred to in this list either as a Proclamation or a Citation), which sets out the proposed alterations and which is intended to be made public, so that anyone with objections to the proposed faculty can make them. And of course there are occasionally other types of document. In 1837 the two deaneries of Cricklade and Malmesbury were transferred from the diocese, and soon after this date parishes in these deaneries cease to appear.
This list covers faculties issued by the Bishop only, not those issued by Peculiar jurisdictions although in the early bundles do include some strays; but these jurisdictions disappeared about the middle of the 19th century and after this their parishes begin to appear in the Bishop’s series.
Besides the series of separate faculty documents, Registers of Faculties were kept, from 1710 to 1844 (see D1/61/1A-D).
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