_Picts' Houses_ (Vol. viii., p. 392.).--Such buildings underground as those
described as Picts' {209} houses, were not uncommon on the borders of the
Tweed. A number of them, apparently constructed as described, were
discovered in a field on the farm of Whitsome Hill, Berwickshire, about
forty years ago. They were supposed to have been made for the detention of
prisoners taken in the frays during the Border feuds: and afterwards they
were employed to conceal spirits, smuggled either across the Border, or
from abroad.