🔗 Share this article

Families whose relatives buried in resting places at risk from coastal erosion argue that a lack of decision on how best to address the problem is creating avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their departed family.

A Looming Threat to Ancient Graveyards

The council 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 coming decades.

A recent report on the situation details a series of possible actions, from taking no action to disinterring bodies and reburying them in more secure locations. Officials maintain it is for local people to decide how to proceed.

“At the moment 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 encroaching sea.”

Projections suggest at least a portion of one churchyard could fall into the waves in the next 80 years, but some locals worry it will happen much sooner. “In my view it’s got under 20 years, if you look at what’s happened in the last 30 years,” one said.

Haunted by the Past

One resident recalled a childhood visit to the nearby settlement of Eccles, which has almost entirely vanished into the sea, along with its church and graveyard.

“You could see people’s bones,” she said. “Certain people hold this idealized notion that people’s remains will just get carried away to sea. They won’t. Individuals will collect remains as mementos and go plundering graves in search of treasures. That is completely disrespectful.”

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

A Soldier's Resting Place in Peril

Along the coast lies the grave of a former paratrooper killed while working overseas. His parent said she could not sleep after learning her child's grave might one day be moved.

“It does 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 interments should cease but says it is premature to exhume existing graves. “What I would choose 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 Solutions and Clarity

An absence of consensus over the timing and method to tackle the challenge has left bereaved families feeling exasperated and anxious.

Some want additional coastal protections to delay the unavoidable loss and to allow burials to continue for now. Different voices contend the moment for relocation is drawing near.

“It is very emotive,” said one relative. “The council’s report was thorough, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is implemented. And all parties is avoiding responsibility over who is responsible.”

A local official confirmed the burial sites were owned and managed of the church authorities. “In the end it is up to them to choose the direction to take. We are here to help support them through that process with communities.”

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

“There is no common view on what should happen yet. It requires good local conversations to discover the appropriate solutions for each community.”

The prospect of losing the churches and graveyards was described as one of “immense sadness for the local community,” but faith leaders also referenced a doctrine in life after death, providing a spiritual perspective on the temporal disappearance of hallowed earth.