🔗 Share this article

Loved ones of people buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion state that indecision on how best to tackle the problem is causing them avoidable anguish about the eternal homes of their departed family.

An Impending Threat to Historic Graveyards

Local authorities have singled out three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being consumed by the ocean in the coming decades.

A newly published study on the situation sets out a series of possible actions, from taking no action to exhuming remains and reburying them in safer sites. Officials say it is for the community to decide how to move forward.

“Right now we’re in limbo. It causes me distress. My parents wanted this to be their final resting place, but it isn’t going to be because of the encroaching sea.”

Projections suggest at least part of one churchyard could be claimed by the waves in the next 80 years, but some residents fear it will happen far earlier. “I think it’s got less than 20 years, if you consider what’s occurred in the last 30 years,” one said.

Haunted by the Ghosts of Eccles

A local business owner recalled a childhood visit to the neighbouring settlement of Eccles, which has largely vanished into the water, along with its place of worship and burial ground.

“It was possible to see people’s bones,” she said. “Certain people hold this romantic idea that the deceased will just get washed out to the ocean. They won’t. People will collect remains as souvenirs and go plundering graves looking for treasures. That is completely undignified.”

“I’m worried that the same thing that happened at Eccles will happen at Happisburgh and there’ll be skeletons on the beach. I would feel disgusted by that.”

A Paratrooper's Grave in Peril

Along the shoreline is situated the grave of a ex-soldier who died while serving abroad. His mother expressed she lost sleep after learning her son’s final plot might one day be relocated.

“It does trouble me to think this may not remain his lasting resting place,” she said. “To our family it’s an important place to go.”

She believes, new burials should stop but says it is premature to exhume current plots. “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 Clarity

An absence of consensus over the timing and method to tackle the problem has resulted in bereaved families feeling frustrated and anxious.

Several families are calling for additional coastal protections to slow the unavoidable loss and to permit burials to continue for now. Different voices argue the time for moving graves is drawing near.

“It is very emotional,” said one relative. “The official study was really good, but now there’s confusion about how it is taken forward. And everybody is avoiding responsibility over who is responsible.”

A coastal manager said the graveyards were under the care of the church authorities. “In the end it is down to them to decide the direction to take. Our role is here to help support them through that process with residents.”

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

“There is no common view on what should be done yet. We need good local conversations to find the right answers for each community.”

The possibility of losing the churches and graveyards was labeled one of “profound sorrow for the area,” but church representatives also referenced a belief in life after death, providing a theological viewpoint on the temporal loss of sacred ground.