🔗 Share this article

Loved ones whose relatives buried in resting places vulnerable to shoreline retreat state that a lack of decision on how best to address the issue is creating avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.

An Impending Danger to Historic Graveyards

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

A recent report on the situation sets out a series of options, from doing nothing to exhuming remains and relocating them in safer sites. Authorities maintain it is for the community to determine how to move forward.

“Right now we’re in a state of uncertainty. It causes me distress. They wanted 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 residents fear it will happen far earlier. “I think it’s got less than 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Troubled by the Past

One resident recalled a childhood visit to the nearby village of Eccles, which has largely disappeared into the water, including its place of worship and burial ground.

“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 collect remains as souvenirs and go grave robbing in search of valuables. It’s completely undignified.”

“I fear that the identical fate that happened at Eccles will happen at Happisburgh and there’ll be bones on the shore. I would feel disgusted by that.”

A Soldier's Resting Place in Jeopardy

Further up the shoreline lies the burial plot of a ex-soldier killed while serving abroad. His parent said she could not sleep after learning her child's final plot might one day be relocated.

“It does disturb me to think this may not remain his permanent home,” she said. “For us it’s an important place to go.”

In her view, new burials should stop but says it is too soon to exhume current plots. “What I would choose for now is to take no action and closely monitor, but an timely resolution must be made when a tipping point has been attained.”

Seeking Answers and Certainty

An absence of agreement over the timing and method to handle the problem has left grieving relatives feeling exasperated and anxious.

Some want more sea defences to delay the unavoidable loss and to permit burials to proceed for now. Others argue the moment for moving graves is approaching.

“It is very emotional,” a family member stated. “The official study was really good, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is taken forward. And all parties is avoiding responsibility over who is responsible.”

A coastal manager said the graveyards were owned and managed of the local diocese. “In the end it is down to them to choose the path to take. We are here to help support them through that journey with communities.”

He added there was ample time to consider all the choices. “We are talking many years before it starts to be lost.”

“Currently, there exists no common view on what should be done yet. We need good local conversations to find the right answers for each village.”

The prospect of losing the churches and graveyards was labeled one of “immense sorrow for the local community,” but faith leaders also referenced a belief in resurrection, offering a spiritual perspective on the physical disappearance of sacred ground.