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Loved ones whose relatives laid to rest in resting places at risk from shoreline retreat state that indecision over how to tackle the problem is causing them avoidable anguish concerning the final resting places of their departed family.

A Looming Danger to Ancient Churchyards

The council have singled out three burial grounds in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being at risk 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 relocating them in safer sites. Officials maintain it is for the community to determine how to move forward.

“At the moment we’re in limbo. 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 a portion of one churchyard could be claimed by the waves in the next 80 years, but some locals fear it will happen far earlier. “In my view it’s got under 20 years, if you consider what’s happened in the last 30 years,” a farmer stated.

Troubled by the Ghosts of Eccles

A local business owner remembered a school trip to the neighbouring settlement of Eccles, which has almost entirely disappeared 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 idealized notion that the deceased will just get carried away to the ocean. That is not the case. Individuals will take bones as mementos and go grave robbing looking for valuables. That is completely undignified.”

“I’m worried that the same thing that befell at Eccles will occur at Happisburgh and there’ll be skeletons on the beach. I’d be disgusted by that.”

A Soldier's Grave in Jeopardy

Further up the coast is situated the grave of a former paratrooper who died while working overseas. His parent expressed she lost sleep after discovering her son’s grave might one day be relocated.

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

In her view, new burials should stop but says it is too soon to exhume existing graves. “My preference for now is to do nothing and watch carefully, but an early decision must be made when a critical moment has been reached.”

Seeking Answers and Certainty

An absence of agreement over when and how to tackle the problem has resulted in bereaved families feeling frustrated and worried.

Several families are calling for additional coastal protections to delay the inevitable erosion and to allow burials to proceed for now. Different voices contend the time for relocation is drawing near.

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

A coastal manager said the graveyards were owned and managed of the church authorities. “Ultimately it is down to them to choose the direction to take. We are here to assist them through that process with residents.”

It was also stated there was time to weigh all the choices. “This concerns many years before it begins getting lost.”

“Currently, there exists no common view on what should be done yet. It requires productive community discussions to discover the right solutions for each community.”

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