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Loved ones of people buried in resting places vulnerable to coastal erosion say that a lack of decision over how to tackle the issue is causing them unnecessary distress concerning the final resting places of their loved ones.

A Looming Threat to Ancient Graveyards

The council have identified three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being in danger of being consumed by the ocean in the coming decades.

A newly published study on the issue details a series of options, from doing nothing to exhuming remains and reburying them in more secure locations. Officials maintain it is for the community to decide how to proceed.

“At the moment we’re in a state of uncertainty. It upsets me. They intended this to serve as their last home, but it isn’t going to be because of the encroaching sea.”

Estimates suggest at least part of one churchyard could fall into the waves in the next 80 years, but some locals 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.

Haunted by the Past

One resident remembered a school trip to the neighbouring village of Eccles, which has largely vanished into the sea, along with its place of worship and burial ground.

“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. Individuals will take bones as mementos and go plundering graves looking for valuables. That is completely undignified.”

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

A Soldier's Resting Place in Peril

Further up the coast is situated the grave of a former paratrooper who died while serving overseas. His mother expressed she could not sleep after learning her son’s final plot might one day be relocated.

“It truly disturb me to think this won’t be his lasting home,” she said. “For us it’s an important site to visit.”

She believes, new interments should cease but says it is premature to disturb existing graves. “What I would choose for now is to do nothing and watch carefully, but an early decision must be made when a critical moment has been reached.”

Seeking Solutions and Certainty

An absence of consensus over when and how to handle the problem has resulted in grieving relatives feeling exasperated and worried.

Some want additional coastal protections to delay the inevitable erosion and to allow burials to proceed for now. Different voices argue the time for relocation is drawing near.

“It is very emotional,” said one relative. “The council’s report was thorough, but now there’s confusion about how it is taken forward. And everybody is washing their hands over who is accountable.”

A local official said the burial sites were owned and managed of the local diocese. “In the end it is down to them to decide the direction to take. We are here to help support them through that process with communities.”

He added there was time to weigh all the options. “This concerns decades before it begins getting lost.”

“There is no unified opinion on what should happen yet. We need productive local conversations to discover the right answers for each community.”

The prospect of losing the historic sites was labeled one of “profound sadness for the local community,” but faith leaders also spoke of a doctrine in resurrection, providing a theological perspective on the temporal disappearance of sacred ground.