Fig. 265.—Stones in Earth-house at Crichton Mains.
Another structure of the same type (Fig. [262]) was found in 1869 at Crichton Mains, in Midlothian.[[116]] It was of the usual long, narrow, curved form, 51½ feet in length, and gradually widening from 5 feet 10 inches just within the entrance to 9 feet at the farther end. A number of the roof-stones remained in position, and the floor throughout being formed of the natural rock it was seen that the average height was about 6 feet. The walls converge from the floor for about half their height and rise somewhat perpendicularly above that, thus giving to the cross-section the form of an ogee vault. The door (A, in Figs. 262, 263), formed of two upright stones crossed by a lintel, is 3 feet high by 33 inches wide, and the top is about 5 feet under the present surface of
Fig. 264.—Ambry in Earth-house at Crichton Mains. the ground. Fourteen feet inwards is a passage at right angles to the gallery, the entrance to which is shown at F in Fig. 262. It is 13 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet 6 inches high, rising by low sloping steps in the rock to what seems another entrance nearer the surface, also shown in Fig. 262 at E. At G is a small ambry (Fig. [264]). No relics were found in the excavation; but here and there in the interior faces of the walls there were a number of squared stones faced with the diagonal broaching and stugging which is so common in late Roman work.[[117]] About thirty of these are visible. Two are shown in Fig. 265. There were also other hewn stones, some of which had apparently formed portions of water conduits (H, Fig. [265]), and others adapted to different
Fig. 265.—Stones in Earth-house at Crichton Mains. purposes. The lintel-stone of the door of the side passage is moulded and bevelled on the edge in a similar way to the bevelled stones found in the structure at Newstead. It seems evident that this underground building, like that at Newstead, has been partially constructed with stones taken from a ruined building of late Roman workmanship, and that both are consequently later than the commencement of the Roman occupation of the country. Similar indications are given by the discovery of wheel-made pottery of Roman type in the Earth-house at Cairn Conan, and of fragments of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian in the Earth-houses at Tealing, Pitcur, and Fithie. The presence in most of them of querns and implements of iron, and the entire absence of such implements as are characteristic of the ages of stone and bronze, are indications pointing to the same conclusion. On the other hand there is a complete absence of indications of Christianity, and the characteristics of the ornamentation of the bronze armlets found in association with them are those which belong only to the earlier and partial development of Celtic art, which preceded its subsequent and complete development under the new impulses and opportunities afforded by Christianity. It seems therefore that, so far as our present knowledge will carry us towards a definite conclusion, the period of this peculiar type of structure will lie between the time of the general establishment of Christianity and the departure of the Romans from Scotland.
The range of the type includes the whole eastern area of Scotland, stretching from Berwickshire on the south to the Shetland Isles. Its special form is so peculiar that it must be held to constitute a distinction sufficiently characteristic to separate the Scottish group from all other varieties of underground structures, and sufficiently constant to warrant us in assigning to it a specific value. There is an Irish group and a Cornish group of underground structures, but they do not generally present the special features of form which characterise the Scottish group. The Irish examples are usually associated with raths, thus resembling the specimen in the rath of Dunsinnane, which is the only one known of that special variety in Scotland. They are excavated in the area enclosed by the interior rampart of the rath, and consist of one or more chambers, sometimes circular or oval in plan but often rectangular, and connected together by low narrow passages. Sometimes the chambers are lined with masonry, and roofed by overlapping courses forming a rude dome-shaped vault; at other times they are simply excavated in the hard earth, while the passages and doorways are lined with stones. They thus differ considerably in form from the Scottish variety, and they differ also in being usually associated with raths or earthworks, while the Scottish structures are usually contiguous to the sites of overground habitations.
The general features of the Cornish group, on the other hand, are more allied to those of the Scottish area, inasmuch as they are often associated with clusters of overground habitations. One at Chapel Euny, in the parish of Saucreed, near Penzance, contiguous to the sites of four circular huts, is an underground gallery presenting features of remarkable similarity to that at Cairn Conan, in Forfarshire. The gallery, which is slightly curved, is about 60 feet in length, 6 feet wide, and from 6 to 7 feet high. A circular chamber, 16 feet in diameter, constructed of large granite blocks, each overlapping the one below it and thus forming a domed roof which must have been 10 or 12 feet high, was connected with the wider end of the gallery by a passage 10 feet long, opening off one side. Another small offset near the narrower end of the gallery, also about 10 feet long, slopes up to the surface, presenting an entrance doorway 2 feet 8 inches in height, with recesses on either side as if to retain a slab to close the doorway. The floors of the gallery and chamber were paved with flat stones, and provided with drains underneath the pavement. The relics found in the structure were whetstones; hammer-stones; spindle-whorls; several varieties of domestic pottery, red and black, mostly plain, but occasionally ornamented with markings made by a pointed instrument; an iron spear-head; and a fragment of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian.[[118]] Another at Halligey, near Trelowarren, consists of a slightly-curved gallery 90 feet in length, from 3 to 5 feet in width, and about 6 feet high in the middle, becoming lower towards the extremities. It has a small rectangular chamber off one side at the farther end of the main gallery. The main gallery opens off the middle of the side of a shorter and wider gallery 28 feet in length, 5½ feet wide, and 6 feet high. At one end of this shorter gallery a narrow passage rises to the surface. The entrance passage is provided with checks for two doors, and the whole structure is strongly and substantially built and lintelled with large flags. On the surface there are traces of two embankments with an intervening ditch surrounding a large area within which there may have been a cluster of overground structures.[[119]]
Like the Scottish examples the Earth-houses of Cornwall are long narrow galleries of dry-built masonry, but they are not so strongly marked by the peculiar feature of single or double curvature which distinguishes the Scottish group. They are comparatively few in number, and any indications of the period of their occupation that have been observed point also to a time not far distant from the close of the Roman occupation of the country. No other group of such underground structures is known in any other part of Europe, or indeed anywhere else in the world. These excavated chambers, possessing the characteristics which have been described, are peculiar to the Celtic area, and the specially typical form with the strongly marked curvature is found only in Scotland.
Of the culture and civilisation of the people who constructed these strange subterranean cells, it may be impossible in the present condition of our knowledge to form an adequate estimate. But we can say this of them with certainty, that whatever may have been the special motives and circumstances that induced them to give this peculiar expression to their architectural efforts, they exhibit in other respects evidences of culture which, though it may be held to be inferior in range and quality to the culture of the Christian time, compares not unfavourably (so far as it goes) with that which is exhibited in connection with the superior architecture of the Brochs.