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Continued
Picts Houses or Pictish Camps.
"These ancient dwellings are of a Circular form, varying from nine to forty feet in diameter,
with a dyke or wall raised on the exterior. This was of Course a Shelter from the Cold as well as a Support for the
roof. In the Centre of the floor is often found an accumulation of Ashes, below which is laid a Causeway
or pavement of natural faced Stones joined closely together, in some extending over the whole interior of the
Camp, in others only a small space in the middle, and laid in the manner of a heartstone."
Extract from the History of Birse, by Robert Dinnie

"Sir Richard Colt Hoare remarks in his ancient Wiltshire 'We have undoubted proofs from history
and from existing remains, that the earlier habitations were Pits or slight excavations in the ground, covered
and protected from the inclemency of the weather by boughs of trees and Sods of turf.' They are described
by Martin as 'little houses built under ground, called earth houses which served to hide a few people
and their goods in time of War.' In Aberdeenshire where they have been found in greater numbers than
in any other Single district, they are more generally Known, as in the Hebrides, by the name of Eirde Houses.
* * considerable numbers of these may be observed in several districts, both of Aberdeenshire and
Inverness-shire, each Surrounded with a raised rim of earth, in which a slight break generally indicates
the door, and not improbably also the Window of the the Aboriginal dwelling * * Though by no means
uniform either in internal shape or dimensions, a general Style of Construction prevaild throughout the
whole."
Appendix to Pratts Buchan

The name "Eirde Houses"is not applied in the locality of Aberdour or Tyrie, to
the objects in question, although evidently of the same Construction.
Field Examiners remarKs.