🔗 Share this article

Loved ones of people laid to rest in resting places at risk from shoreline retreat say that indecision over how to tackle the issue is creating avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.

An Impending Threat to Ancient Graveyards

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

A newly published study on the situation sets out a range of possible actions, from doing nothing to exhuming remains and reburying them in more secure locations. Officials say it is for the community to determine how to proceed.

“At the moment we’re in a state of uncertainty. It upsets me. My parents 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 locals fear it will happen far earlier. “In my view it’s got under 20 years, if you consider what’s occurred in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Troubled by the Past

A local business owner recalled a school trip to the neighbouring settlement of Eccles, which has almost entirely disappeared into the water, along with its church and graveyard.

“It was possible to see people’s bones,” she said. “Some have this idealized notion that the deceased will just get washed out to the ocean. They won’t. People will collect remains as souvenirs and go plundering graves in search of valuables. That is completely disrespectful.”

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

A Soldier's Resting Place in Peril

Along the shoreline is situated the burial plot of a ex-soldier killed while working overseas. His mother said she could not sleep after discovering her child's grave might one day be relocated.

“It does trouble me to think this may not remain his permanent 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 exhume existing graves. “My preference for now is to do nothing and watch carefully, but an early decision needs to be made when a critical moment has been reached.”

Seeking Solutions and Certainty

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

Some want more sea defences to slow the inevitable erosion and to permit funerals to proceed for now. Others argue the time for relocation is approaching.

“The situation is very emotive,” a family member stated. “The official study was thorough, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is implemented. And everybody is avoiding responsibility over who is accountable.”

A local official confirmed the burial sites were under the care of the local diocese. “In the end it is down to them to choose the direction to take. Our role is here to help support them through that journey with residents.”

He added there was 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 productive local conversations to discover the appropriate solutions for each community.”

The possibility of the loss of the historic sites was described as one of “immense sorrow for the local community,” but church representatives also spoke of a doctrine in resurrection, offering a theological perspective on the physical loss of hallowed earth.