🔗 Share this article

Loved ones of people buried in graves at risk from coastal erosion say that indecision over how to address the problem is creating avoidable anguish concerning the final resting places of their departed family.

An Impending Threat to Historic Churchyards

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

A recent report on the situation sets out a range of possible actions, from doing nothing to exhuming remains and relocating them in more secure locations. Authorities maintain it is for the community to determine how to proceed.

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

Estimates suggest at least part of one graveyard 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 less than 20 years, if you look at what’s occurred in the last 30 years,” one said.

Haunted by the Ghosts of Eccles

A local business owner remembered a school trip to the nearby settlement of Eccles, which has almost entirely vanished into the water, including its church and graveyard.

“It was possible to see human remains,” she said. “Certain people hold this idealized notion that people’s remains will just get washed out to sea. That is not the case. Individuals will take bones as mementos and go plundering graves in search of valuables. It’s completely undignified.”

“I’m worried that the same thing that befell at Eccles will occur at Happisburgh and there’ll be bones on the shore. I’d be appalled by that.”

A Soldier's Grave in Jeopardy

Along the coast is situated the burial plot of a former paratrooper killed while working abroad. His parent said she lost sleep after learning her son’s final plot might one day be relocated.

“It truly disturb me to think this won’t be his lasting resting place,” she said. “To our family it’s an significant place to go.”

She believes, new burials should cease but says it is too soon to disturb 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 attained.”

Seeking Solutions and Clarity

An absence of consensus over the timing and method to handle the problem has left bereaved families feeling frustrated and anxious.

Several families want additional coastal protections to slow the unavoidable loss and to permit burials to continue for now. Different voices contend the time for moving graves is approaching.

“It is very emotive,” 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 responsible.”

A local official confirmed the burial sites were under the care of the local diocese. “Ultimately it is up to them to decide the direction to take. We are here to assist them through that journey with communities.”

It was also stated there was ample time to weigh all the choices. “We are talking decades before it starts to be lost.”

“Currently, there exists no common view on what should happen yet. It requires good local conversations to find the right answers for each community.”

The possibility of losing the churches and graveyards was described as one of “profound sadness for the local community,” but faith leaders also referenced a doctrine in life after death, offering a theological perspective on the physical disappearance of sacred ground.