Star joins fight to slay plan for chapel

7:00pm Friday 4th July 2008

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HE has played the Prime Minister in Little Britain, battled monsters and robots as Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, played a formidable alien in Dr Who and been part of Britain's most famous flirtation over coffee in the Gold Blend ads.

Now Anthony Head has stepped into a new role - supporting villagers fighting plans to build a chapel over graves in a New Forest churchyard.

The proposals, to extend St John the Baptist Church in Burley, have caused an unholy row.

One of the graves in the way of the building project is that of Anthony's grandmother Peggy, who was killed when her husband's motorcycle crashed into a tree that Sinn Fein had put across a country road during the 1920s.

Her son Seafield, Anthony's father, will oppose the chapel plan at a special ecclesiastical court in the church next Saturday.

Seafield, 88, said Anthony was going to collect him and take him to the church court hearing.

"I felt intense irritation when I heard about the chapel," he said.

"People are rather inclined to press ahead and do things without thinking about the consequences.

"The graves will be completely inaccessible if the scheme goes ahead.

I will present various alternatives to the court. There are several options open to the church, which doesn't have to go to the expense of building a chapel."

Objector Jean Wilde said the church was planning to build over eight graves and remove a stained glass window.

"Three public meetings were staged in the village and at each one residents said they didn't want a chapel. The church is quite sufficient as it is," she said.

"The church room was extended in 1988 and would satisfy any needs that could be met by a chapel.

"The vicar and the Parochial Church Council say the room has no ambience and isn't consecrated, but we believe it's adequate."

Vicar the Rev Diane Webster said: "Although some headstones will have to be moved the graves themselves will not be interfered with.

"There is no intention to upset people."

A similar situation at All Saints', Hordle recently ended with a church court hearing giving permission for building work.