OK, a wail for help. Crossposted - sort of - in Bitches.

Can anyone point me towards a picture, site, anything at all, of a stately home family crypt?

I just to know what it looks like, stairs down, interior layout. Next scene in Matty Groves is Char (daughter of the house) and her father down among the dead men, looking for a grave, and something nasty happening.

And the setting is the Leight-Arnold family crypt. And no one will tell me what theirs looks like. And damnitalltohell, I've even been a weekend guest at frellin' Castle Howard. But it didn't occur to me to ask John to show me the family's dead people, where they were stashed, I mean. Besides, at least one of them, Henry's fifth wife, had no head at the end.

But I need a crypt. For Callowen House. Soon, too.

Help? Acknowledgements at beginning of book would ensue, and maybe baked goods.

All the crypt references I could find were for Metairie or Savannah, not so helpful, I'm thinking. Although there's an outfit that will sell you a private family mausoleum with six crypts around a center vestibule, solid granite carved with roses around a bronze door. No? Sorry. I'll continue looking tomorrow.

Nice Bev. We loves our Bev.

Would it maybe be in the family's chapel?

DAMN it.

Going just from gothic-type novels and movies, I would think a family crypt would be on the grounds, but away from the house, while the family chapel would be in, or attached to the house. You actually could lay out your theoretical crypt exactly like the one in Welcome to the Hellmouth, a little larger or smaller as needed, and there's not a body could say you were wrong. It seems to be the default layout for all the ones I'm remembering, including Zeffirelli's R&J. The half-round ones tend to be in churches, below the nave, and reserved for saints or influential friends of the church.

I'll continue the hunt tomorrow. 'Night.

Deb, insent with quite a lot of links about family and chapel crypts. Some really good pictures in there, I think.

deb: this page has a picture of what looks to my untutored eye very much like a crypt that's now missing the roof; this page gives information about the crypts of St. Bride's church, London. Lots of places have crypts, but pictures are nearly impossible to find and descriptions on websites tend to go "dark, gloomly, scary, cramped, lead coffins, mummified remains, come and pay our entrance fee and see for yourself".

Quite a lot of stately homes have crypts, often though not always containing family members (the other favourite place in the crypt under the local church), mostly under the chapel in the castle or stately home itself, underground as the word implies, dark: what I've gathered from my web surf (and seeing some in churches) is steep steps down, then a room, basically square, with shelves around three walls, large enough to store a coffin on. They seem to normally be built to hold about nine coffins.

In a cathedral, of course, it's larger; but the design seems to be much the same.

This page has a picture of the vaulted Norman crypt at Warwick castle (scroll down a long way, or do ctrl+F "crypt"); this page has a picture of the crypt at the Tarbat Discovery Centre, which seems to be an early site in Scotland; and this page has plans of two Anglo-Saxon crypts in Bradford-Upon-Avon.

Not a lot, and most of it not very specific, but I hope that helps a little.

I love you guys.

And.....

AHA!

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I'm thinking that the family will have its own private vault under St. Giles, the church in the story. After all, Purbury (mythical Hampshire village) is part of the Leight-Arnold family demesne. But I'm going to have a mausoleum, rather like the Wentworth one above, as well; the only family member buried there will be the "good" ghost, Lady Susanna, with the mausoleum erected in her memory by her grieving husband. Buried in unconsecrated ground on the property will be Andrew, the "bad" ghost.

So yes, absolutely, the crypt info for churches now becomes incredibly useful, and bless you both, Deena and Am.

But I'm really unreasonably cross that John Howard simply said, that? Oh, that's one of the follies. Why not tell us it was a mausoleum, damnit?

After all, Purbury (mythical Hampshire village) is part of the Leight-Arnold family demesne.

I read that as Puberty. Ah, yes, lovely Puberty-on-Growthspurt, where everybody has pimples and angst.

Off to pick up glasses now. Life will be much less entertaining, I fear.

Okay, I just got this email from my creative writing teacher, and I'm a little dumbfounded about it:

Wanted all of you know that there is one restriction when it comes to stories. No genre fiction, please. No horror, sci-fi, fantasy, children's lit and don't ask me why I have to say this, but no porn. That doesn't mean your stories can't utilize the fantastic, the horrible, the erotic. You just have to make sure, in the end, it's literary fiction. Good luck on your first drafts.

Considering that I live and breathe genre, this could be problematic.

Well, that's... odd and irritating. I suppose you can try to make a run at magical realism.