A short time ago, one of those remarkable remains of a very remote
antiquity, and called by the country-people Picts' Houses, Yird, Eirde, or
Erde houses, was discovered by Mr. Douglass, farmer, Culsh, in the parish
of Tarland, Aberdeenshire, near his farm-steading, on the property of our
noble Premier. It is a subterranean vault, of a form approaching the
semicircular, but elongated at the farther end. Its extreme length is
thirty-eight feet; its breadth at the entrance a little more than two feet,
gradually widening towards the middle, where the width is about six feet,
and it continues at about that average. The height is from five and a half
to six feet. The sides are built with stones, some of them in the bottom
very large; the roof is formed of large stones, six or seven feet long, and
some of them weighing above a ton and a half. They must have been brought
from the neighbouring hill of Saddle-lick, about two miles distant, being
of a kind of granite not found nearer the spot. The floor is formed of the
native rock (hornblende), and is very uneven. When discovered it was full
of earth, and in the process of excavation there was found some wood ashes,
fragments of a glass bottle, and an earthenware jar (modern), some small
fragments of bones, and one or two teeth of a ruminant animal, and the
upper stone of a querne (hand-corn-mill, mica schist), together with a
small fragment, probably of the lower stone. But, alas! there were no
hieroglyphics or cuneiform inscriptions to assist the antiquary in his
researches. These underground excavations have been found in various
parishes in Aberdeenshire, as well as in several of the neighbouring
counties. In the parish of Old Deer, about fifty years ago, a whole village
of them was come upon; and about the same time, in a den at the back of
Stirlinghill, in the parish of Peterhead, one was discovered which
contained some fragments of bones and several flint arrow-heads, and
battle-axes in the various stages of manufacture. In no case, however, have
any of those previously discovered been of the same magnitude as the one
described above. They were generally of from twelve to fifteen feet in
length, and from three to four feet in height, and some only six feet in
length, so that this must have been in its day (when?) a rather
aristocratic affair. Have any similar excavations been found in England?
The earliest mention of the parish of Tarland, of which there is any
account, is in a charter granted by Moregun, Earl of Mar, to the Canons of
St. Andrews, of the Church of S. Machulnoche (S. Mochtens, Bishop and
Confessor) of Tharuclund, with its tithes and oblations, its land and mill,
and timber from the Earl's woods for the buildings of the canons, A.D.
1165-71; and a charter of King William the Lion, and one of Eadward, Bishop
of Aberdeen, both of same date, confirming the said grant.