To the Worshipful Maurice Charles Merttins Swabey, Doctor of Civil Law, Vicar General, Official Principal and Commissary, lawfully constituted of the Right Reverend Father in God John Fielder, by Divine Permission, Lord Bishop of Oxford.

The humble Petition of the Reverend Joseph Matthews, Rector of the Parish of Chesham Bois in the County of Buckingham and Diocese of Oxford, and of the Churchwardens of the same Parish.

Sheweth, That the parish Church of Chesham Bois having from the effects of time and other circumstances become in need of restoration and repair, your Petitioners are desirous of restoring and repairing the Church and of effecting certain alterations therein in accordance with the Plans and at a Specification of Messrs William Waymouth and Son of 23, Moorgate Street, London, the Architects to be entrusted with the proposed works:

That at a Meeting of the Parishioners in Vestry held after due Notice on the Third day of May 1878 it was resolved that the proposed Scheme for the restoration of the Church should be adapted and the same should be carried out in accordance with the aforesaid Plans and Specification, and that application should be made for obtaining the requisite Faculty for that purpose.

That the cost of the proposed works intended to be defrayed by means of voluntary Subscriptions with the probable aid of Grant or Grants from certain Diocesan Societies:

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that a Licence or Faculty may be granted authorising them to rebuild the Tower of the said Church from the foundations, to build a North Aisle, to take down and remove the Gallery, to build a new Vestry, to remove the present Seats and to provide new Seats throughout; and generally to do and perform all such other works and operations as may be fairly implied in carrying out the aforesaid Plans and Specification although not specifically mentioned or set forth. And further that in the same Faculty power may be granted authorising them to take down and remove or carefully to disturb any Tablets, Tombs, Tombstones, Hatchments, Monuments, Graves, Vaults, Monumental Inscriptions and other Records of the Departed as shall be requisite in the prosecution of the above mentioned purposes due care being taken to decently re-inter in some convenient part of the Churchyard, any Coffins or Human Remains which it may be unavoidable to remove or disturb in clearing or excavating the Ground for any of the purposes aforesaid): Your Petitioners undertaking that all such Tablets, Tombs, Tombstones, Hatchments, Monuments, Monumental Inscriptions and other Records shall be carefully preserved and placed in some convenient situation in or about the Church or Churchyard as soon as the general works shall have been sufficiently advanced or completed. And your Petitioners also undertaking that all Persons if any, enjoying Faculty pews in the said Church as at present arranged, and which may be removed or disturbed by the operations aforesaid, shall upon demand and proof of their right to the same have a new Sitting or Sittings allotted or set apart for them.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Dated this fifth day of June in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy eight