🔗 Share this article

Families whose relatives buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion state that indecision over how to address the problem is creating unnecessary distress concerning the final resting places of their departed family.

An Impending Danger to Historic Churchyards

Local authorities have singled out three burial grounds in the villages of Happisburgh, Mundesley, and Trimingham as being at risk of being swallowed by the sea in the next few generations.

A newly published study on the situation sets out a series of possible actions, from doing nothing to disinterring bodies and reburying them in more secure locations. Officials maintain it is for local people to decide how to move forward.

“Right now we’re in a state of uncertainty. It causes me distress. They intended this to serve as their final resting place, but it isn’t going to be because of the encroaching sea.”

Estimates indicate at least a portion of one churchyard could be claimed by the sea in the next 80 years, but some residents fear it will happen far earlier. “In my view it’s got under 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Haunted by the Past

One resident remembered a childhood visit to the nearby village of Eccles, which has largely vanished into the sea, along with its church and graveyard.

“You could see human remains,” she said. “Certain people hold this idealized notion that the deceased will just get washed out to sea. That is not the case. Individuals will take bones as souvenirs and go plundering graves looking for valuables. That is completely undignified.”

“I fear that the same thing that happened at Eccles will occur here and there’ll be bones on the shore. I’d be disgusted by that.”

A Paratrooper's Resting Place in Peril

Along the coast lies the grave of a former paratrooper who died while serving overseas. His mother expressed she lost sleep after discovering her child's grave might one day be moved.

“It does disturb me to consider this may not remain his lasting home,” she said. “To our family it’s an important site to visit.”

She believes, new interments should cease but says it is too soon to exhume existing graves. “My preference for now is to take no action and watch carefully, but an timely resolution must 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 challenge has resulted in grieving relatives feeling exasperated and worried.

Several families are calling for more sea defences to delay the inevitable erosion and to permit funerals to proceed for now. Others argue the moment for moving graves is drawing near.

“It is very emotional,” said one relative. “The official study was really good, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is taken forward. And everybody is washing their hands over who is accountable.”

A coastal manager confirmed the graveyards were owned and managed of the local diocese. “In the end it is up to them to decide the path to take. Our role is here to assist them through that journey with residents.”

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

“There is no unified opinion on what should be done yet. It requires good local conversations to find the appropriate answers for each village.”

The prospect of losing the churches and graveyards was labeled one of “immense sadness for the area,” but church representatives also spoke of a doctrine in resurrection, providing a spiritual perspective on the temporal loss of sacred ground.