🔗 Share this article

Families of people laid to rest in resting places vulnerable to shoreline retreat state that indecision over how to address the problem is causing them avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their departed family.

An Impending Danger to Historic Churchyards

Local authorities have identified three burial grounds in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being engulfed by the sea in the next few generations.

A recent report on the situation details a series of options, from taking no action to disinterring bodies and relocating them in more secure sites. Authorities maintain it is for the community to decide how to proceed.

“Right now we’re in limbo. It causes me distress. My parents wanted this to serve as their last home, but it isn’t going to be because of the encroaching sea.”

Projections indicate at least part of one graveyard could fall into the sea in the next 80 years, but some locals fear it will happen much sooner. “I think it’s got under 20 years, if you look at what’s occurred in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Haunted by the Past

A local business owner recalled a childhood visit to the neighbouring village of Eccles, which has almost entirely vanished into the water, along with its place of worship and burial ground.

“You could see human remains,” she said. “Some have 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 valuables. That is completely undignified.”

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

A Paratrooper's Grave in Jeopardy

Further up the coast lies the burial plot of a former paratrooper killed while serving abroad. His mother said she lost sleep after discovering her son’s grave might one day be relocated.

“It truly trouble me to think this may not remain his lasting resting place,” she said. “To our family it’s an important site to visit.”

In her view, new interments should cease but says it is premature to exhume current plots. “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.”

Searching for Answers and Certainty

The lack of consensus over the timing and method to handle the challenge has resulted in bereaved families feeling frustrated and anxious.

Several families want additional coastal protections to delay the unavoidable loss and to permit funerals to continue for now. Others contend the moment for moving graves is drawing near.

“The situation is very emotive,” a family member stated. “The official study was really good, but now there’s confusion about how it is taken forward. And all parties is washing their hands over who is accountable.”

A local official confirmed the graveyards were under the care of the local diocese. “Ultimately it is down to them to decide the path to take. We are 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.”

“There is no unified opinion on what should be done yet. We need good local conversations to find the appropriate solutions for each village.”

The prospect of the loss of the churches and graveyards was labeled one of “profound sadness for the area,” but church representatives also spoke of a belief in life after death, offering a theological viewpoint on the temporal disappearance of sacred ground.