Bodies found DEAD in house

[ColJack]

but surely the ground will settle over the years as the coffin and contents rot away over time..

MM also sugested that it's because the graves were re-used several times..

 

[Donkmeister]

One night in a bar a colleague told me he was a grave digger during his gap year. I asked him about the 6-foot thing, who wouldn't?

Apparently you don't HAVE to bury people 6 feet deep at all, but it is the most common depth to use. The 6-feet is the depth of the hole. It is then quite common to have another coffin buried on top of the original one, indeed my grandmother was buried on top of my grandfather.

The legal requirement wasn't actually that deep, I want to say 3 feet. A lot of it depends on the sort of soil.

He then went on to talk about situations where you have to pour a concrete slab on top of the coffin, but he didn't use the words "zombie" or "bodysnatcher", so I switched off...

They had a hippy on the news once saying it's better to "bury" people directly onto the surface of the soil, as they decompose far more quickly because the soil 6 feet down is virtually sterile.

 

[joinerjohn]

One thing that has always puzzled me,,,, When the grave digger is digging a grave for a second burial, as in wife dies first then husband dies 20yrs later,,, How does he know how far to dig the second grave?? Being that most graves are dug by machinery nowadays.....
Do they just keep digging till they hit wood/bones then infill a few inches or what?

 

[Mickymoody]

but surely the ground will settle over the years as the coffin and contents rot away over time..

MM also sugested that it's because the graves were re-used several times..

Yes, that's exactly my point; everything rots away, but leaves a mound in the ground, and fresh burials are then made on the same spot, as its consecrated ground. Archeologists (sp) don't find buildings on top of the land do they?

So over time the land builds up, and the church looks lower down in the landscape. If you don't believe; go look at a church! Burials could only be committed in churchyards, and they don't have the room, so over years buried on top of one another, whole families, then strangers, then their relatives, as plots degrade, all adding to the general landscape. Macabe but true. And you can see it with your own eyes.