🔗 Share this article

Families of people buried in resting places vulnerable to coastal erosion say that indecision on how best to tackle the issue is causing them avoidable anguish about the eternal homes of their departed family.

A Looming Danger to Ancient Graveyards

The council have identified three church graveyards in the communities of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being swallowed by the sea in the coming decades.

A newly published study on the situation sets out a series of options, from doing nothing to disinterring bodies and relocating them in safer sites. Officials maintain it is for local people to decide how to move forward.

“At the moment we’re in a state of uncertainty. It upsets me. My parents intended this to serve as their final resting place, but it isn’t going to be because of the encroaching sea.”

Projections suggest at least a portion of one churchyard could be claimed by the sea in the next 80 years, but some residents worry it will happen much sooner. “In my view it’s got under 20 years, if you look at what’s occurred in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Troubled by the Ghosts of Eccles

One resident recalled a childhood visit to the neighbouring settlement of Eccles, which has almost entirely disappeared into the water, including its place of worship and burial ground.

“You could see people’s bones,” she said. “Certain people hold this romantic idea that people’s remains will just get carried away to the ocean. They won’t. People will collect remains as souvenirs and go plundering graves in search of valuables. That is completely disrespectful.”

“I fear that the identical fate that happened at Eccles will happen here and there’ll be bones on the beach. I’d be disgusted by that.”

A Soldier's Resting Place in Jeopardy

Further up the shoreline is situated the burial plot of a former paratrooper killed while working abroad. His parent expressed she could not sleep after learning her child's final plot might one day be relocated.

“It does trouble me to consider this won’t be his lasting resting place,” she said. “To our family it’s an important site to visit.”

She believes, new burials should cease but says it is premature to exhume existing graves. “My preference for now is to take no action and closely monitor, but an timely resolution must be made when a critical moment has been reached.”

Seeking Solutions and Certainty

An absence of agreement over when and how to handle the challenge has left grieving relatives feeling exasperated and worried.

Several families are calling for additional sea defences to delay the inevitable erosion and to permit burials to proceed for now. Different voices contend the time for relocation is drawing near.

“The situation is very emotional,” said one relative. “The council’s report was really good, but now there’s confusion about how it is taken forward. And everybody is avoiding responsibility over who is accountable.”

A local official said the graveyards were under the care of the local diocese. “In the end it is down to them to decide the direction to take. We are here to assist them through that journey with residents.”

He added there was time to consider all the choices. “We are talking decades before it starts to be lost.”

“Currently, there exists no unified opinion on what should happen yet. We need productive local conversations to discover the appropriate solutions for each community.”

The possibility of losing the churches and graveyards was labeled one of “immense sorrow for the local community,” but faith leaders also referenced a belief in life after death, providing a theological perspective on the physical loss of sacred ground.