🔗 Share this article

Loved ones of people buried in resting places vulnerable to coastal erosion argue that indecision on how best to address the problem is creating avoidable anguish concerning the eternal homes of their loved ones.

An Impending Threat to Ancient Churchyards

Local authorities have singled out three burial grounds in the communities of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being consumed by the ocean in the coming decades.

A recent report on the issue details a range of possible actions, from taking no action to exhuming remains and relocating them in more secure sites. Authorities maintain it is for local people to decide how to proceed.

“Right now we’re in a state of uncertainty. It causes me distress. They wanted this to serve as their last home, but it won't be because of the sea.”

Projections suggest at least a portion of one churchyard could be claimed by the sea in the next 80 years, but some residents worry it will happen far earlier. “I think it’s got under 20 years, if you look at what’s happened in the last 30 years,” one said.

Troubled by the Ghosts of Eccles

One resident remembered a school trip to the nearby settlement of Eccles, which has largely disappeared into the water, including its place of worship and burial ground.

“You could see human remains,” she said. “Certain people hold this romantic idea that people’s remains will just get carried away to the ocean. That is not the case. Individuals will collect remains as souvenirs and go grave robbing in search of treasures. That is completely undignified.”

“I’m worried 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 Soldier's Grave in Peril

Further up the shoreline lies the burial plot of a former paratrooper who died while serving overseas. His parent said she lost sleep after learning her son’s grave might one day be relocated.

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

In her view, new interments should stop but says it is too soon to exhume current plots. “What I would choose for now is to do nothing and watch carefully, but an timely resolution must be made when a tipping point has been reached.”

Seeking Answers and Certainty

The lack of consensus over the timing and method to handle the problem has resulted in grieving relatives feeling exasperated and worried.

Several families are calling for additional coastal protections to slow the unavoidable loss and to permit funerals to continue for now. Different voices contend the time for relocation is drawing near.

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

A local official said the burial sites 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 help support them through that journey with communities.”

It was also stated there was ample time to consider all the choices. “This concerns decades before it starts to be lost.”

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

The prospect of losing the historic sites was described as one of “profound sorrow for the area,” but church representatives also spoke of a belief in life after death, providing a spiritual viewpoint on the temporal loss of hallowed earth.