An historic church is facing a backlash from angry locals after using some of its gravestones to build a “peace path” which features poetry from young people.

Clophill Heritage Trust, which manages St Mary’s Church in Clophill, Bedfordshire, has come under criticism for laying the gravestones from the ancient churchyard flat.

The trust said the stones, which now form a section of the 'Poetry and Peace Path', were moved from their original sites in the 1960s to protect them for the future.

It claims the path is the most positive way of “keeping and denoting respect for the flat stones without inscriptions”.

However, enraged locals have branded the move as particularly “disrespectful” to villagers whose loved ones have been affected but were not informed of the change.