Burial Vaults
In more modern terms, a crypt is most often a stone chambered burial vault used to store the deceased. Crypts are usually found in cemeteries and under public religious buildings, such as churches or cathedrals, but are also occasionally found beneath mausolea or chapels on personal estates. Wealthy or prestigious families will often have a 'family crypt' or 'vault' in which all members of the family are interred. Many royal families, for example, have vast crypts containing the bodies of dozens of former royals. In some localities an above ground crypt is more commonly called a mausoleum, which also refers to any elaborate building intended as a burial place, for one or any number of people.
There was a trend in the 19th century of building crypts on medium to large size family estates, usually subtly placed on the edge of the grounds or more commonly incorporated into the cellar. After a change of owner these are often blocked up and the house deeds will not allow this area to be re-developed.
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Famous quotes containing the words burial and/or vaults:
“On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)