MP Questions Nuns’ Exhumations in Hastings
Hastings MP Helena Dollimore has demanded urgent information about the 46 nuns from Holmhurst St. Mary whose remains were exhumed, cremated and then reburied as ashes.
Ms Dollimore describes it as an “understandably distressing situation” and cites the article in HIP – the Hastings Independent on 29 August (Issue 284) as highlighting “discrepancies around why the decision was made to exhume the graveyard”.
HIP reported how the Mother Agnes Trust, owner of the graveyard which is now in the middle of a housing estate just off The Ridge, blamed badgers for its expensive decision to dig up the bodies of the nuns.
Sally Cole, a former resident of the Holmhurst St Mary convent school and relative of one of the nuns in question, wrote to the MP claiming that neither she nor other relatives had been informed about the exhumations in what she believed to be a breach of the rules. Certainly, the presence of badgers does not seem to be covered by the usual regulations covering exhumations as set out in case law – in particular the Blagdon Cemetery Court of Arches case of 2002.
Ms Dollimore has written to the interim Chief Executive of Hastings Borough Council asking for the full relevant reports from the Conservation officer and Environmental Health team to “provide an accurate sequence of events and some clarification on the decisions made”.
Read more on the story in HIP Issue 286, out on 26 September.
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