🔗 Share this article

Families whose relatives laid to rest in resting places at risk from coastal erosion say that a lack of decision on how best to address the issue is creating unnecessary distress about the final resting places of their departed family.

An Impending Threat to Ancient Graveyards

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

A recent report on the issue sets out a series of possible actions, from doing nothing to disinterring bodies and reburying them in more secure sites. Officials say it is for local people to determine how to proceed.

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

Projections indicate at least a portion of one churchyard could be claimed by the waves in the next 80 years, but some residents worry it will happen far earlier. “I think it’s got less than 20 years, if you look at what’s happened in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Troubled by the Past

One resident recalled a childhood visit to the neighbouring settlement of Eccles, which has largely disappeared into the water, including its church and graveyard.

“It was possible to see people’s bones,” she said. “Some have this idealized notion that the deceased will just get carried away to sea. That is not the case. People will take bones as mementos and go grave robbing in search of valuables. It’s completely disrespectful.”

“I fear that the identical fate that happened at Eccles will occur here and there’ll be bones on the beach. I would feel appalled by that.”

A Paratrooper's Resting Place in Jeopardy

Further up the coast is situated the burial plot of a ex-soldier who died while serving abroad. His parent expressed she could not sleep after learning her son’s final plot might one day be moved.

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

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 watch carefully, but an timely resolution needs to be made when a tipping point has been attained.”

Searching for Answers and Certainty

The lack of consensus over when and how to handle the problem has left bereaved families feeling exasperated and anxious.

Some want more sea defences to slow the unavoidable loss and to allow burials to proceed for now. Different voices argue the time for relocation is drawing near.

“The situation 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 avoiding responsibility over who is responsible.”

A coastal manager said the burial sites were owned and managed of the local diocese. “In the end it is down to them to decide the path to take. Our role is here to help support them through that process with residents.”

It was also stated there was time to weigh all the choices. “This concerns decades before it starts to be 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 losing the historic sites was described as one of “immense sorrow for the local community,” but church representatives also spoke of a doctrine in resurrection, providing a theological viewpoint on the temporal disappearance of sacred ground.