Records of where people are buried at a graveyard are believed to have been lost over the years.

The issue was highlighted by Keith Aylen who, following the death of his dad Tony Aylen, wanted to visit the graves of his father’s parents in the cemetery in Union Road, Minster.

He travelled down from the North West of England and said that some of the headstones were in a bad condition and had collapsed.

He said: “The main issue for me was that the inscriptions on the majority of the grave stones had become worn by the weather and were no longer readable.”

Mr Aylen said he asked at Minster Abbey in Vicarage Road if there was a plan of the graveyard available to locate his relatives’ stones but was “disappointed” to be told that they did not have one.

He said: “This seems most unsatisfactory and means that I will no longer be able to visit the graves of my grandparents. I assume that this may impact on other families.”

The Rev Tim Hall, vicar of the Benefice of West Sheppey, said although the Abbey has a record of burials for the Minster site, what it does not have is a plan of the actual ground so it cannot locate where certain people are interred.

He said he believed the graveyard was closed in the 1960s and after that it was taken over by the Swale council after which the plan may have been lost.

Mr Hall added they have had a couple of people asking to see a plan for the site at the Abbey.

He said: “If people ask us then we do send them to the archive centre in Maidstone because they usually hold all of the records.”

A spokesman for Swale council spokesman confirmed that although the local authority keeps very detailed records of other plots in the borough, it does not have a plan for the Union Road cemetery.