A CEMETRY memorial stone to a vicar can be sited the wrong way round, councillors have ruled.

Rev Derrick Cooling of St Briavels died in September, 2015, aged 80, and the village’s parish council were asked to let the stone be placed at his head, out of sync with other headstones.

They were told: “The reason for this is the belief or tradition that priests may be buried in the opposite direction in preparation for the Second Coming, so that when the dead rise up, the priests will be facing their parishioners.”

The council, who oversee the village cemetery, backed the request. 

Rev Cooling, father of former Monmouth MP Huw Edwards’ wife Tess, was a big supporter of women priests, and moved in 1995 with his wife Margaret from a parish in Newport, Gwent, to Purleigh in Essex, so she could be ordained in the Church of England.

At the time, the Church in Wales had not passed legislation permitting women priests.

The father-of-four, who was previously a vicar in Monmouth and a frequent letter writer to national newspapers, later returned to live in the Wye Valley.