‘You could see bones’: Families’ anguish over coastal erosion threat to Norfolk graves | Norfolk

Families of people buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion say indecision over how to solve the problem is causing avoidable pain over the final resting places of their loved ones.

North Norfolk district council (NNDC) has found that three church cemeteries in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham and Mundesley are at risk of being swallowed by the sea in the coming years.

A. latest report on the subject It lays out a range of options, from taking no action to exhuming the remains and reburying them in safer locations. The council and the Church of England say it is up to local people to decide how to proceed.

But the lack of consensus on when and how to resolve the issue has left grieving families frustrated and worried.

Frank Mason, 69, whose parents Ethel and Fred are buried in Happisburgh, said: “We are in limbo at the moment. It makes me sad. My parents wanted this to be their final resting place but it won’t be because of the sea.”

Forecasts suggest at least part of the churchyard could fall into the sea within the next 80 years, but Mason fears it could happen much sooner. “If you look at what’s happened in the last 30 years, I think there’s less than 20 years left,” he said.

Mason, a Happisburgh farmer like many of his ancestors, said: “I’d like to see my family move before I die. It’s disturbing but no one listens.”

Mason suggested moving the graves to land next to the water tower, the highest point in the village, and thinks the church should pay for the move.

Sarah Greenwood accepts her grandparents’ graves in Happisburgh need to be moved, but says it’s not yet time for that. He argues that the urgency of the threat has been exaggerated in the local media.

“It’s very emotional; it made me sick throughout the summer,” she said. “The council’s report was really good but now there is uncertainty about how to take this forward. And everyone is washing their hands of who is responsible.”

He wants the council to build more sea defenses to slow inevitable erosion and allow burials in cemeteries to continue for now.

Greenwood, who runs a packing business, recalled a school trip to the neighboring village of Eccles, which had almost entirely disappeared into the sea, including its church and cemetery.

“You could see people’s bones,” he said. “Some people have the romantic idea that people’s remains will be washed out to sea. They won’t do that. People will take the bones as souvenirs and go grave robbing for valuables. It’s completely dishonorable.

“They’ll have to move, but not yet. We want soft defenses first.”

Mason is also disturbed by what happened at Eccles. “I’m worried that the same thing that happened in Eccles will happen in Happisburgh and there will be skeletons on the beach. I would be disgusted by that,” he said.

Nine miles up the coast from Trimingham lies the grave of former paratrooper Nicholas Crouch, who was killed in 2010 while working as a close protection officer in Mosul, Iraq.

His mother, Barbara Crouch, a retired teacher, said she could not sleep one day after learning that her son’s grave might be moved. He added: “It bothers me to think that this won’t be his permanent resting place. It’s an important place for us to go.”

Every year on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, the Crouch family gathers at his grave. Crouch believes new graves should be stopped, but says it is too early to open existing graves. “For now, my preference is to do nothing and monitor the situation closely, but when the tipping point is reached, early decisions need to be made,” he said.

In the meantime, bereaved families should be consulted and a timetable for decisions should be determined, he said. “This needs to be resolved because I am temporarily deeply disturbed by this situation,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t get lost in the conversation. The important thing for me is to keep doing it.”

Crouch says that once the tipping point is reached, he would opt for mass graves. “It would be more bearable to do this together,” he said. “We might all want to be there when the groundbreaking is done, but we won’t want to watch the whole procedure go horrifying.”

Rob Goodliffe, NNCC’s coastal transition manager, said the cemeteries were owned and managed by the Norwich diocese. He said: “Ultimately it’s up to them to decide the direction to go. We’re here to work with the communities and support them through this process.”

He confirmed a number of options were being considered, including halting funerals and reburialing at least some of vulnerable church cemeteries, but said there was time to consider all options. “We’re talking decades before it started disappearing,” he added.

Bishop Graham Usher of Norwich said: “There is no consensus yet on what should happen. We need good local conversations to find the right solutions for each community.”

He said the prospect of losing churches and cemeteries was “a great sadness for the local community” but that the Christian church believed in resurrection. “We believe there is life after death.”