New Protest over Nuns’ Exhumations
KENT BARKER
Alumni of the former convent of Holmhurst St Mary have called for a public apology over the handling of the exhumations of the bodies of 46 nuns who had taught at the Anglican school.
As HIP reported on 29 August (Issue 284), almost exactly a year ago The Mother Agnes Charitable Trust arranged for all the bodies in the ‘nuns’ graveyard’ on consecrated land they owned behind the convent to be dug up, cremated and re-buried, blaming an incursion of badgers. The site is now in the middle of a large housing estate at Baldslow just off the Ridge.
Sally Cole who attended the convent was a close relative of the headmistress Sister Barbara, who was one of those whose body was exhumed. She has written to Hastings MP Helena Dollimore asking her to investigate. Ms Cole told HIP: “Before an exhumation took place, relatives should have been informed of any proposal to alter the graves. I am not aware of any relatives being told, nor of any contact with the Old Girls’ Association.”
Permission, known as a ‘faculty’, for the exhumations was granted in September 2024 by a little-known church body called the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Chichester, following a petition from The Mother Agnes Trust. The trustee who wrote the petition, John Preston, is also Diocesan Secretary. He said, “Christian burial is intended to be permanent rest for mortal remains and in consecrated ground protected from disturbance. This protection cannot be assured given the likelihood of further badger interference with the remains of the sisters.” He told HIP that badger-proof fencing would not have been practical nor effective and that, as badgers are a protected species, there were very strict regulations about disturbing their setts without appropriate approvals – “which the trust obtained”.He said the trust was not aware of any relatives of the deceased nuns but that the Old Girl’s Association had ‘approved’ the scheme.
Members of the convent alumni, who include Dame Joanna Lumley, have expressed deep concern about the operation and say the presence of badgers had never been mentioned. One, who asked not to be named, told HIP: “When the last Old Girls Fellowship Reunion was held on 29 June 2024, we were informed that the graveyard had been neglected and that it had been recently strimmed to bring the ground under control; we were shown photographs to this effect.”
However, within a few weeks, the trust filed the petition saying in part: “On the edge of the graveyard there is a badgers’ sett, and earlier this year badgers tunnelled up through one of the graves bringing to the surface human bones including a skull.” In other words, the trust did know about the incursion before the 29 June reunion but apparently failed to inform the association of it.
The Badgers Trust told HIP that it was entirely predictable that a housing development would displace the animals and that plans should have included provisions for them.
Sally Cole said:” I feel It is too convenient that the badgers decided to move their sett just when a major housing development was about to build on the land, while also totally disregarding the promise that had been made to protect the graveyard.” She said the Old Girls and the nuns’ relatives “deserve some kind of public apology and a statement of intent regarding the ashes and a memorial service”.
HIP has yet to receive answers from the Mother Agnes Trust as to what, if any, financial arrangements had been made between the housing developers and the trust itself.
See Page 7 for more on Badgers.
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