More than 1,000 graves at the cemetery have been surveyed

Elisabeth Jones, from Bethesda, was shocked when she discovered the stone in Llanbeblig graveyard had been laid down.

A number of other gravestones in the cemetery have also been flattened

Gwynedd Council said some unsecured headstones near a path used by school children posed "a high risk" and had to be taken down.

However, Ms Jones accused the authority of having "no respect for the dead".

"It's going to cost between �50 and �55 to re-erect the headstone. I think the council should pay for this since they were the ones who pulled it down."

Gwyn Morris Jones, the council officer responsible for graveyards, said he agreed it was "a sensitive and difficult matter".

"There is a need to make the place safe. Llanbeblig is a large graveyard near to a school in which a number children using a path and an assessment was made that the place was a high risk to children."

He said contacting all the relatives of people buried there to tell them of their plans would have been difficult, if not impossible.

'Dreadful'

There are 4,000 people buried at the Llanbeblig graveyard which is near to Ysgol yr Hendre primary school.

A council spokeswoman said that although 40 headstones lay flattened there, "only a small proportion" had been pulled down because of safety reasons.

She said the majority had been vandalised or fallen over on their own.

The council said they had recently surveyed 1,200 graves.

Caernarfon town councillor Dennis Williams said: "It's not far from Easter and thinking of the families,

"The council said to me that the headstones will be temporarily put back for Easter, but the graveyard looks dreadful."