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Loved ones of people buried in resting places at risk from coastal erosion state that a lack of decision on how best to address the problem is creating avoidable anguish concerning the final resting places of their departed family.

A Looming Danger to Historic Churchyards

The council have singled out three burial grounds in the communities of Happisburgh, Mundesley, and Trimingham as being in danger of being engulfed by the ocean in the coming decades.

A newly published study on the issue details a series of possible actions, from doing nothing to exhuming remains and relocating them in more secure locations. Authorities maintain it is for the community to determine how to proceed.

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

Projections indicate at least part of one graveyard could be claimed by the waves in the next 80 years, but some residents worry it will happen much sooner. “I think it’s got less than 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” one said.

Troubled by the Past

A local business owner remembered a school trip to the neighbouring settlement 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 idealized notion that the deceased will just get washed out to the ocean. They won’t. Individuals will collect remains as souvenirs and go plundering graves in search of valuables. That is completely undignified.”

“I’m worried that the same thing that happened at Eccles will occur here and there’ll be skeletons on the beach. I would feel disgusted by that.”

A Soldier's Grave in Jeopardy

Along the shoreline is situated the grave of a former paratrooper who died while working abroad. His parent said she lost sleep after learning her child's final plot might one day be moved.

“It does disturb me to think this may not remain his lasting resting place,” she said. “To our family it’s an important place to go.”

In her view, new interments should cease but says it is too soon to disturb current plots. “What I would choose for now is to take no action and closely monitor, but an early decision must be made when a tipping point has been reached.”

Seeking Solutions and Certainty

An absence of agreement over when and how to handle the challenge has left grieving relatives feeling exasperated and worried.

Several families want additional coastal protections to delay the inevitable erosion and to allow burials to continue for now. Different voices argue the moment for moving graves is approaching.

“It is very emotional,” said one relative. “The official study was really good, but now there’s uncertainty about how it is implemented. And everybody is washing their hands over who is accountable.”

A coastal manager said 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 process with communities.”

It was also stated there was ample time to consider all the choices. “This concerns decades before it starts to be lost.”

“Currently, there exists no common view on what should be done yet. We need good community discussions to find the appropriate answers for each village.”

The possibility of the loss of the churches and graveyards was described as one of “immense sadness for the local community,” but church representatives also referenced a belief in resurrection, providing a spiritual perspective on the temporal loss of sacred ground.