🔗 Share this article

Loved ones of people laid to rest in graves at risk from shoreline retreat state that a lack of decision on how best to address the issue is causing them avoidable anguish about the eternal homes of their departed family.

An Impending Threat to Historic Graveyards

The council have singled out three church graveyards in the communities of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being at risk of being swallowed by the ocean in the coming decades.

A newly published study on the issue sets out a series of options, from doing nothing to disinterring bodies and reburying them in more secure locations. Officials maintain it is for the community to decide how to move forward.

“At the moment we’re in limbo. It upsets me. My parents intended this to be their last home, but it isn’t going to be because of the sea.”

Estimates indicate at least a portion of one graveyard could be claimed by the waves in the next 80 years, but some locals fear it will happen much sooner. “In my view it’s got less than 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 childhood visit to the nearby village of Eccles, which has almost entirely vanished into the sea, along with its church and graveyard.

“It was possible to see people’s bones,” she said. “Certain people hold this romantic idea that the deceased will just get carried away to the ocean. They won’t. People will take bones as mementos and go grave robbing looking for valuables. It’s completely disrespectful.”

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

A Soldier's Grave in Peril

Further up the coast is situated the burial plot of a ex-soldier who died while serving abroad. His parent said she could not sleep after discovering her son’s grave might one day be relocated.

“It does disturb me to consider this may not remain his lasting resting place,” she said. “For us it’s an significant place to go.”

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 take no action and watch carefully, but an early decision needs to be made when a tipping point has been reached.”

Seeking Answers and Certainty

An absence of agreement over the timing and method to handle the problem has resulted in bereaved families feeling frustrated and worried.

Some want more coastal protections to delay the unavoidable loss and to allow funerals to continue for now. Others argue the time for relocation is approaching.

“The situation is very emotional,” said one relative. “The official study was really good, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is taken forward. And all parties is washing their hands over who is responsible.”

A local official confirmed the burial sites were owned and managed of the church authorities. “Ultimately it is down to them to choose the direction to take. Our role is here to assist them through that journey with residents.”

It was also stated there was time to weigh all the options. “We are talking decades before it begins getting lost.”

“There is no common view on what should happen yet. We need good local conversations to find the appropriate answers for each community.”

The prospect of losing the churches and graveyards was described as one of “profound sorrow for the area,” but faith leaders also spoke of a belief in resurrection, offering a theological perspective on the physical disappearance of hallowed earth.