Subject to subsection (2) below, where outside the area subject to the M1Welsh Church Act 1914 a churchyard has been closed by an Order in Council, the parochial church council shall maintain it by keeping it in decent order and its walls and fences in good repair.

If, pursuant to subsection (2) above, a request is served on a parish or community council or the chairman of a parish meeting and, if that council or meeting so resolve and, before the expiration of the said three months, give written notice of the resolution to the council of the F2district, Welsh county or (as the case may be) county borough and to the parochial church council maintaining the churchyard, the F3local authority to whom the notice is given , and not the parish or community council or parish meeting, shall take over the maintenance of the churchyard at the expiration of the said three months.

Where before the passing of this Act a church council established under the constitution of the Church in Wales, in purported exercise of the powers conferred by section 18 of the M2Burial Act 1855 (maintenance of closed churchyard payable out of rates), issued a certificate with respect to a closed churchyard to a local authority, and that authority thereupon took over the maintenance of the churchyard, the authority’s action shall be deemed to have been lawful for all purposes, and the authority for the time being responsible for the maintenance of the churchyard shall have the like duty with respect to its maintenance as a parochial church council elsewhere than the area subject to the M3Welsh Church Act 1914.

In subsection (1) above, “the area subject to the M4Welsh Church Act 1914” means the area in which the Church of England was disestablished by that Act.