The providers of chancel repair searches and insurance have displayed an enviable instinct for business, but some of their advertising is lamentably wide of the mark.

ChancelCheck’s paperwork features the west front of Westminster Abbey, which is not a parish church and therefore (perhaps fortunately for those who might otherwise have been liable) carries no risk of chancel repair liability.

Now Isis (see [2008] Gazette, 19 June, 7) presents us with a picture of a medieval parish church tower swathed in scaffolding. Expensive for uninsured owners of rectorial property in the parish? No. Such towers are almost invariably at the west end of the church – the opposite end to the chancel.