Ed Sheeran Gets His Crypt

Just in time for his 31st birthday, Ed Sheeran has received the best present of all: permission from his local council to construct a burial chamber on his sprawling estate named “Sheeranville” near Framlingham, Suffolk.

The red-haired crooner applied last month to build the crypt on his 16-acre, £3.7 million property. The plan was to put it underneath the Sheeranville chapel, with blueprints designating the chamber as “burial zone beneath (penetration through slab).”

Construction is already underway on the private church, which was greenlit in 2019. The chapel will be in the shape of a boat, with a leaf-inspired roof, east-facing stained-glass windows to let in the sunrise, and two round towers. Completing this sanctuary for “contemplation, prayer, and relaxation” will be the newly approved tomb, which will measure approximately 9 feet by 6 feet, or, as the Sun puts it, “enough to fit two bodies.”

Sheeranville’s residents include not just the Shape of You singer, but also his wife Cherry and daughter Lyra. Altogether, that adds up to more than two bodies (granted, Lyra is a baby and likely quite small). It remains unclear how crypt space will be apportioned among the family of three.

While the Sheerans may be celebrating their new sepulcher-to-be, not everyone is thrilled for them. According to the Sun, one local penned in a letter of objection, “Are celebrities now so detached from reality that their every living breath, and now even the act of dying, be apart from the rest of us?” A salient question, and one that could easily be turned into an evocative set of lyrics by Sheeran.

This is not the first time that goings-on at Sheeranville have been the cause of neighborly strife. As the Daily Mail notes, the pop star has received pushback for objecting to a neighbor’s garden expansion, for hanging a large pub sign outside his estate’s drinking establishment, and for installing a sauna next to a private pool that was supposed to be meant strictly for wildlife, not for recreational activities such as swimming.

Regarding the pool hubbub, Sheeran has remarked in the past: “I just think people just need to mind their own business.” Amen! Enjoy that hard-earned corpse cellar, mate.