18th-Century Crypt Revealed By Tomb Collapse In England

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.

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 — tho