🔗 Share this article

Families whose relatives laid to rest in resting places at risk from shoreline retreat state that a lack of decision on how best to address the problem is creating avoidable anguish about the eternal homes of their departed family.

An Impending Threat to Ancient Graveyards

The council have identified three burial grounds in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being consumed by the ocean in the next few generations.

A newly published study on the situation sets out a series of possible actions, from doing nothing to disinterring bodies 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 upsets me. They intended this to serve as their final resting place, but it isn’t going to be because of the sea.”

Projections indicate at least part of one graveyard could fall into the waves in the next 80 years, but some locals worry it will happen far earlier. “In my view it’s got less than 20 years, if you look at what’s occurred in the last 30 years,” one said.

Haunted by the Ghosts of Eccles

A local business owner remembered a school trip to the neighbouring settlement of Eccles, which has largely vanished into the water, including its church and graveyard.

“It was possible to see human remains,” she said. “Certain people hold this romantic idea that the deceased will just get washed out to the ocean. That is not the case. People will collect remains as souvenirs and go plundering graves looking for treasures. That is completely undignified.”

“I fear that the identical fate that befell at Eccles will occur at Happisburgh and there’ll be bones on the beach. I would feel appalled by that.”

A Paratrooper's Grave in Peril

Further up the coast is situated the burial plot of a former paratrooper who died while working abroad. His parent said she could not sleep after discovering her son’s final plot might one day be moved.

“It does trouble me to think this won’t be his lasting home,” she said. “To our family it’s an significant place to go.”

In her view, new interments should stop but says it is too soon to exhume existing graves. “What I would choose for now is to take no action and closely monitor, but an early decision needs to be made when a critical moment has been attained.”

Seeking Answers and Certainty

An absence of agreement over the timing and method to tackle the challenge has resulted in bereaved families feeling exasperated and anxious.

Several families want additional sea defences to slow the unavoidable loss and to allow funerals to proceed for now. Different voices contend the time for relocation is approaching.

“The situation is very emotional,” said one relative. “The council’s report was really good, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is implemented. And everybody is washing their hands over who is responsible.”

A local official confirmed the burial sites were under the care of the church authorities. “In the end it is up to them to choose the path to take. Our role is here to assist them through that journey with communities.”

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

“Currently, there exists no unified opinion on what should happen yet. It requires productive community discussions to discover the right answers for each village.”

The possibility of the loss of the historic sites was described as one of “immense sadness for the area,” but faith leaders also referenced a doctrine in life after death, offering a spiritual perspective on the physical loss of sacred ground.