Family Members Discover They've Been Visiting The Wrong Grave For 17 Years
Before realizing that someone else was interred there, a family spent 17 years gathering at the gravesite they thought was their father's final resting place.
When Tom Bell and his sisters made plans to have their recently deceased mother buried next to their father Thomas Bell at the Holy Trinity Church in Wingate, County Durham, the undertaker informed them that someone else was down there. This was contrary to what they and their sisters had thought to be true.
That's true, the gravediggers discovered a woman's coffin in the graveyard where they thought their father was buried.
The Diocese of Durham's gravediggers have so far discovered six burials, but they still haven't located Thomas's grave.
The fact that the woman who was actually buried there was also mistakenly interred for 17 years in the wrong location with the incorrect headstone adds another layer to this story.
The family has located an unmarked grave a few meters distant that might house their father's coffin, and they have approached the Chancellor of the Diocese of Durham for permission to dig it up.
Tom continued, "In 2005, there were several burials on the day that dad was laid to rest, and we were grieving so we couldn't recall precisely which plot was his. We relied on the gravestone remaining in the correct location when we returned.