🔗 Share this article

Loved ones of people laid to rest in graves at risk from coastal erosion say that a lack of decision on how best to tackle the issue is causing them avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.

An Impending Danger to Ancient Graveyards

The council have singled out three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being engulfed by the sea in the next few generations.

A recent report on the situation details a series of options, from taking no action to exhuming remains and relocating them in more secure locations. Officials maintain it is for the community to determine how to proceed.

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

Estimates suggest at least a portion of one graveyard could fall into the sea in the next 80 years, but some locals worry it will happen much sooner. “In my view it’s got under 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Troubled by the Past

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

“You could see human remains,” 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. It’s completely undignified.”

“I’m worried that the same thing that befell 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 Jeopardy

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

“It truly disturb me to think this may not remain his permanent home,” she said. “To our family it’s an significant place to go.”

In her view, new burials should cease but says it is premature to exhume existing graves. “My preference for now is to take no action and watch carefully, but an timely resolution needs to be made when a tipping point has been reached.”

Searching for Solutions and Certainty

The lack of agreement over the timing and method to tackle the challenge has left grieving relatives feeling exasperated and anxious.

Some are calling for more sea defences to delay the inevitable erosion and to permit funerals to continue for now. Different voices contend the time for relocation is approaching.

“It is very emotive,” said one relative. “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 accountable.”

A coastal manager confirmed the burial sites were under the care of the local diocese. “In the end it is up to them to choose the path to take. Our role is here to help support them through that process with communities.”

He added there was time to consider all the options. “This concerns decades before it starts to be lost.”

“Currently, there exists no common view on what should be done yet. It requires good local conversations to discover the appropriate answers for each community.”

The possibility of losing the historic sites was labeled one of “profound sadness for the local community,” but faith leaders also spoke of a belief in life after death, providing a spiritual viewpoint on the temporal disappearance of sacred ground.