Though researchers haven't yet been able to get a good look inside and don't know who's buried there, it's believed that the crypt belonged to a wealthy family and that four bodies were placed on the shelves that line its walls sometime in the mid-1700s.
Reverend Paul FilleryThe tomb collapse at All Saints Church in Martock.
After about 300 years of rain and erosion, an 18th-century tomb at All Saints Church in Martock, Somerset, England, recently collapsed into the ground. At first, church officials thought that the tomb had been swallowed by a sinkhole. But on second look, they realized that the tomb had actually been built atop a hidden crypt dug deep into the earth.
Such structural failure, church officials said, is extremely rare. And sadly, the extent of the destruction may make it impossible to learn who was buried in approximately the mid-1700s — though officials do have a guess.
How A Collapsed Box Tomb Revealed A Hidden Crypt At All Saints Church
The graveyard at All Saints Church in Martock, Somerset, England, was disturbed earlier this month, when a box tomb believed to be from the 1750s suddenly collapsed. Though officials initially thought that the tomb had fallen into a sinkhole, they soon realized that the above-ground monument had actually been the crowning ornament of a subterranean crypt, and that the tomb had fallen into the hollow beneath it.
The collapse created a 12-foot hole. It’s unclear if the collapse damaged any of the surrounding graves, or if the ground remains unstable.
All Saints ChurchThe walls of the crypt were made with local Ham stone.
“We are dealing with a collapsed family vault dating back perhaps to the 1750s,” Reverend Paul Fillery, the Vicar of Martock, told Church Times. “Underground, [the family] constructed a substantial room made of local Ham stone with a solid floor and ceiling. The family would have been placed on shelves that lined the walls. This was topped outside by a box tomb monument with their names on the faces of the monument.”
In an interview with BBC Radio Somerset, Fillery further explained that the crypt was a “vault in which the family were buried [and that] there could be as many as four people down there… they would have been put on ledges.”
All Saints ChurchAnother view of how the box tomb collapsed onto the family crypt beneath it.
Erosion, it seems, played a role in the collapse of the tomb, though Fillery noted that such a collapse is unusual. Unfortunately, the destruction has made it impossible to find the names of the people who buried inside.
However, church officials do have an idea of who may have owned this crypt.
The Family Possibly Buried In The Newly-Uncovered Crypt In Martock
The crypt was seemingly constructed for a wealthy, distinguished family who lived in the area during the 18th century. Though the names of the dead are now impossible to read — and church officials have not yet recovered any human remains from the crypt — Fillery told BBC Radio Somerset that it’s possible to make an educated guess about the identities of the people buried inside.
“We think it could be the Pittard family,” he said, “who had a very…thriving leather business locally. We think it’s them… They would have had a lot of money, and these box tombs you see in churchyards are really a statement saying, ‘these are significant people buried here underneath the ground.'”
According to the Martock Parish Council, “immediately and urgent works” have been scheduled to “retrieve the monument from inside the vault,” though, for now, the area is cordoned off for public safety.
David Bown/Wikimedia CommonsThe Church of All Saints in Martock, Somerset, England.
This tomb collapse is a surprising chapter in the history of All Saints Church, a church that was built in the 13th century, then significantly rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries. According to Fillery, such a thing is practically unheard of and seems to have been caused by simple structural failure.
“The roof sadly has failed over the years,” he said. “[It’s] very, very rare. The church building advisor from the dioceses has never seen anything quite like this, so it is a rare thing to happen.”
After reading about the tomb collapse that revealed a crypt at All Saints Church in Martock, Somerset, England, discover the story of the catacombs of Rome, the snaking network of underground tombs beneath the ancient city. Then, look through these chilling images of the Paris catacombs.
