Work is nearly complete on a sensitive project which has seen 60 bodies dug up from a Kirkcaldy graveyard.
Yesterday work continued to raise the ancient headstones back in their original positions in Abbotshall Church cemetery in the centre of town.
The painstaking work to exhume so many lairs was essential to allow work to progress on rebuilding a dangerous boundary wall.
Late last year Fife Council was given legal permission to exhume bones from their ancient graves in the historic church yard as fears grew over the safety of the wall which was at risk of collapsing on to the adjoining pavement, which lies at a much lower level than the cemetery.
Exhumation expert Peter Mitchell, who has project-managed the exhumation of more than 30,000 human remains across the globe, was drafted in to ensure the sensitive work was carried out with dignity.
He arrived in Fife at the start of the year to oversee the work where his team and the local authority’s staff worked in tandem on either side of the wall, taking it down stone by stone as the bodies were removed to the church crypt for safe keeping until they could be re-interred.
It was originally thought 33 bodies would have to be removed but in the end 60 had to be brought to the surface.
The council always knew there was a risk that the records of those interred, many dating backing centuries, would be incomplete.
All the remains are now back in their original resting places.
While work was being carried out, the cemetery revealed some of its long buried secrets a headstone embedded far below ground, and a forgotten entrance into the wall.
This week sees the ancient headstones and monuments being carefully moved back into position.
And next week, the final week of the project, grass seed will be planted.
Once it grows the tranquil scene will return to how it looked before the five-month project started.
Fife Council’s lead officer Ross Tulloch said: “Works at Abbotshall Cemetery are progressing well.”
The boundary wall has been pointed and then protected by damp hessian to allow the lime render to set.
“We expect the works to be completed by the end of June and a service of blessing will be carried out at a later date,” he added.