Mr. Plunket, who examined the remarkable find which was brought to
light here in 1880, thus describes the wooden structures met with:--
"After a minute inspection, I perceived that we were standing on what
was once an artificial island, oval in shape, slightly elevated in the
centre, and dipping with a gentle slope on all sides, the outlines of
which can still be easily traced. It is 60 yards long, and 14 yards
across at its greatest width. Piles, or stakes, with rudely-sharpened
ends and varying in size, are found at intervals all over this area,
and rough oak planks, about the size of railway sleepers, may be seen
lying in rows here and there, and generally resting on a layer of
branches, the whole being covered over with a stratum of clay and
stones, mingled with charcoal and ashes. It is quite manifest that
this is the site of an ancient crannog, or artificial island. The
surrounding depression, now filled with peat, known as the Coal-Bog,
and covering some scores of acres, once formed a large sheet of
water." (B. 345, p. 66.)
Here perforated posts and frameworks of what were supposed to have
been wooden huts were found. In one place a wooden structure measuring
11 feet 10 inches by 6 feet 3 inches, formed of rude wooden beams,
with roughly-executed mortises, was found no less than 21 feet below
the surface of the peat. Two flint implements, several fragments of
hand-made pottery, devoid of ornamentation, broken hazel-nut shells,
and in the vicinity, at the same depth in the peat, a few wooden
dishes. The stool of a huge _pine tree_, which, "before its decay,
must have measured 14 feet in diameter," was found 2 feet above the
level of the floor of the hut, which sent its roots downwards.
Subsequently Mr. Wakeman states that near this crannog lumps of "bog
butter," rolled up in cow-hides, were found, and that the wood of the
huge root of the tree above referred to turned out on analysis to be
_yew_, and not pine.[74]