Overview

• St Dunstan’s parochial church council has formally agreed to exhume and conserve the relic, subject to approval from the Canterbury commissary court.
• The church plans to raise £50,000 from devotees to pay specialist archaeologists for a multi-year conservation process.
• Permission from the commissary court is required under church law before any work on the burial vault can proceed.
• Leaders are inviting community ideas on whether to return the relic to its vault or display it in a reliquary or carved stone shrine in the Roper chapel.
• Past openings of the vault in 1835 and 1997 left the skull’s condition uncertain, prompting careful dry-out and stabilization measures.