🔗 Share this article

Families whose relatives laid to rest in graves at risk from coastal erosion state that indecision on how best to address the issue is creating avoidable anguish about the eternal homes of their loved ones.

An Impending Danger to Historic Churchyards

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

A newly published study on the issue sets out a series of options, from doing nothing to exhuming remains and reburying them in safer locations. Authorities say it is for the community to determine how to move forward.

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

Estimates suggest at least part of one graveyard could fall into the waves in the next 80 years, but some residents worry it will happen much sooner. “I think it’s got less than 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” one said.

Troubled by the Past

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

“You could see human remains,” she said. “Certain people hold this idealized notion that people’s remains will just get washed out to the ocean. That is not the case. People will take bones as mementos and go plundering graves in search of treasures. That is completely disrespectful.”

“I’m worried that the identical fate that befell at Eccles will happen at Happisburgh and there’ll be skeletons on the shore. I’d be appalled by that.”

A Paratrooper's Resting Place in Peril

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

“It does trouble me to consider this may not remain his permanent home,” she said. “For us it’s an significant site to visit.”

She believes, new interments should stop but says it is too soon to exhume existing graves. “What I would choose for now is to take no action and closely monitor, but an timely resolution needs to be made when a critical moment has been attained.”

Searching for Answers and Certainty

The lack of agreement over when and how to handle the problem has left grieving relatives feeling exasperated and anxious.

Several families are calling for more coastal protections to slow the inevitable erosion and to permit burials to continue for now. Different voices contend the moment for relocation is approaching.

“The situation is very emotive,” a family member stated. “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 local official confirmed the graveyards were owned and managed of the local diocese. “Ultimately it is down to them to choose the direction to take. Our role is here to assist them through that journey with residents.”

It was also stated there was time to weigh all the choices. “We are talking many years before it begins getting lost.”

“Currently, there exists no common view on what should happen yet. It requires productive community discussions to find the right solutions for each community.”

The possibility of the loss of the churches and graveyards was described as one of “immense sorrow for the area,” but church representatives also referenced a belief in life after death, providing a theological perspective on the temporal disappearance of sacred ground.