A simple cross has been used to mark graves for centuries but one council-run cemetery will no longer tolerate them – because of health and safety regulations.

All wooden crosses have been removed from Ebdon Road Cemetery in Weston-super-Mare, leaving families distraught.

One of the graves affected is that of Rosemary Maggs', who died of cancer in May.

Her daughter-in-law Liz Maggs, from Bristol, put a 26-inch-high wooden cross on her grave to mark her burial plot while the family waited for a headstone to be made.

But when Mrs Maggs, 43, returned to visit the grave with her husband Charles and daughters Zoe, 16, and Danielle, 14, just a few days later she found the cross had disappeared.

And when she reported to cemetery staff that the cross had been stolen, they told her it had been removed because it did not meet council regulations.

Mrs Maggs, a carer, was told if she wanted the cross back she had to go and look in an alleyway at the back of the cemetery where items removed from graves were stored.

The fact that the cross had been removed upset 14-year-old Danielle so much that she collapsed.

The teenager has been in hospital since September for treatment for a stomach condition and is only allowed out on rare occasions.

Mrs Maggs, who lives in Bristol, put the wooden cross, bearing a personal inscription, on the grave after being told it would be sixth months before the family could erect a headstone.

The family paid more than £1,000 for the triple plot at the cemetery. Mrs Maggs said she was not made aware of the guidelines for memorials.

She said: "The whole incident has left us all very upset. We had a look around and saw wooden crosses on other graves so thought something similar would be appropriate.

"We put the cross on the grave three weeks after the funeral and returned four days later to find it had been removed."

She added: "I'm very angry that it was removed without us being told. I think the rules are completely over the top."

Mrs Maggs has now taken the cross home and placed it in the family's garden.

North Somerset Council said the cross on Rosemary Maggs' grave was not suitable because all the other graves in the cemetery had flat memorial stones, not upright headstones.

The authority told the Post that because the cross pointed about 2ft up from the ground it was a health and safety risk.

Spokesman Nick Yates said: "There are a number of regulations we ask people to follow and our staff did discuss with the family what could be placed in the cemetery and we do give relatives written information to this effect."