A recent story from the North Norfolk News reports that hundreds of human remains in the grounds of St Mary the Virgin church in Happisburgh [pronounced “Hazebrur”], north Norfolk, are at risk as the churchyard is now ~80 metres from the sea, and could be lost completely within 20 years.
North Norfolk District Council, the Diocese of Norwich and Happisburgh Parish Council are working with the government-backed Coastwise scheme, which prepares coastal communities threatened by erosion. It has commissioned a report on relocating bodies from sites at risk of erosion and Happisburgh is being treated as a test case.
The fate facing the 15th century church and graveyard has been raised during meetings with villagers and the Diocese of Norwich; as a first step, parishioners are considering the closure of the churchyard to further burials. Normally, a churchyard is considered to be eligible for an Order in Council on the grounds that it is full if there is no space for new graves. However, if, unusually, a Parochial Church Council considers that other exceptions to a closure order should apply, a request to this effect, with reasons, should be submitted with the application. A closed churchyard remains subject to the Faculty Jurisdiction, and the PCC remains responsible for continuing to maintain the churchyard, unless and until it has transferred responsibility by giving notice under Section 215 of the Local Government Act 1972.
A further complicating factor at Happisburgh is the presence of a mass grave for 119 sailors of the ~650 on board of HMS Invincible who died in one of Britain’s worst maritime disasters. The North Norfolk News reports that the sailors’ bodies were collected by the cartload and taken to a mass grave on the north side of the church. The remains of many of her crew were located by chance in a mass grave in Happisburgh churchyard during the digging of a new drainage channel in 1988. A memorial stone was erected in 1998 to their memory by the Ship’s Company of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and by the Happisburgh PCC.
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Happisburgh would not be the first church or graveyard to be lost to the sea – churches in nearby Eccles and at Dunwich, Suffolk, were earlier victims to shifting coastal erosion, and bodies were said to be exposed by the erosion. A spokesperson for the Diocese said “This is not a new problem in the Diocese of Norwich. At least nine churches and therefore graveyards were lost to coastal erosion during the Middle Ages”.
An early L&RUK post in 2013 reported on the landslip at St Mary’s Whitby, a problem known to Bram Stoker in Dracula (1897), who noted that the churchyard “descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed.” However, on 20 February 2013, the church architect stated: “work will begin to further secure the East Cliff in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, Whitby, and to try to prevent further landslips”.
The exhumation and reburial of a large number of remains is not unknown; as part of
Although present at development of the Stratford Market Depot during the Jubilee Line Extension Project (and the discovery of several of the remains), my involvement concerned the excavation and treatment of the hazardous and other wastes on site. dp
We owned a holiday shack in Happisburgh with many happy family memories before it went over the edge (demolished by the council because it contained asbestos, costing more than its purchase price). As area dean of Eccles, Manchester, I was particularly moved by beachside notices about respecting human remains from the graveyard at Norfolk’s Eccles.
Since only 119 sailors of the ~650 on the Invincible were buried, I wouldn’t be surprised if other human remains continue to be found…
With regard to the Cistercian Mount St Bernard Priory, since it was not in the context of the post, I omitted to note that “legally” (“i.e. “soft (religious) law”), Tynt Meadow is one of the 11 Trappist breweries recognized by the International Trappist Association, (including Chimay Bleu)…