The Hyde Tomb

A family burial vault predating the mansion that once stood over the hollow, both destroyed in the same eighteenth-century storm its more recent visitor seems to remember firsthand. Its alcove has held an empty, name-inscribed coffin since at least as long as anyone has thought to check.

Whereabouts: A wooded hollow on old family land in rural New England, holding a sealed granite tomb and the burned foundation of a mansion destroyed by lightning a century earlier.

Access: On foot from the family estate; the tomb remained sealed by an ordinary iron gate until a curious, and increasingly less ordinary, child worked out how to force it.