🔗 Share this article

Families of people laid to rest in graves at risk from coastal erosion state that indecision on how best to address the issue is causing them avoidable anguish concerning the eternal homes of their loved ones.

A Looming Threat to Ancient Churchyards

The council have identified three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Mundesley, and Trimingham as being in danger of being consumed by the ocean in the coming decades.

A recent report on the issue details a range of options, from taking no action to exhuming remains and reburying them in safer sites. Authorities maintain it is for the community to determine how to move forward.

“At the moment we’re in limbo. It upsets me. They intended this to serve as their last home, but it won't be because of the encroaching sea.”

Projections suggest at least part of one graveyard could be claimed by the sea in the next 80 years, but some locals fear it will happen much sooner. “I think it’s got less than 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” one said.

Troubled by the Past

A local business owner remembered a childhood visit to the nearby settlement of Eccles, which has largely vanished into the water, including its place of worship and burial ground.

“You could see people’s bones,” she said. “Some have this romantic idea that the deceased will just get carried away to sea. That is not the case. People will take bones as mementos and go plundering graves in search of treasures. That is completely undignified.”

“I’m worried that the same thing that befell at Eccles will occur at Happisburgh and there’ll be skeletons on the shore. I’d be disgusted by that.”

A Paratrooper's Resting Place in Jeopardy

Along the coast is situated the grave of a ex-soldier who died while working abroad. His mother expressed she could not sleep after learning her child's grave might one day be relocated.

“It truly trouble me to consider this won’t be his permanent home,” she said. “To our family it’s an important site to visit.”

In her view, new burials should stop but says it is premature to exhume existing graves. “My preference for now is to do nothing and closely monitor, but an timely resolution needs to be made when a critical moment has been attained.”

Searching for Solutions and Certainty

An absence of consensus over the timing and method to tackle the challenge has left bereaved families feeling exasperated and worried.

Several families want more sea defences to delay the unavoidable loss and to allow funerals to proceed for now. Others argue the time for moving graves is approaching.

“It is very emotive,” a family member stated. “The official study was thorough, but now there’s confusion about how it is taken forward. And all parties is washing their hands over who is responsible.”

A coastal manager confirmed the graveyards were owned and managed of the church authorities. “Ultimately it is up to them to choose the path to take. Our role is here to assist them through that journey with residents.”

It was also stated there was time to weigh all the options. “This concerns many years before it begins getting lost.”

“Currently, there exists no unified opinion on what should happen yet. It requires productive community discussions to discover the appropriate solutions for each community.”

The possibility of the loss of the churches and graveyards was described as one of “profound sorrow for the local community,” but church representatives also spoke of a doctrine in life after death, providing a spiritual viewpoint on the temporal disappearance of sacred ground.