LITMIR.BIZ

      The chamber when cleared out proved to be about 15 feet square on the level of the floor, and 13 feet in height, to the top of the present walls. Immediately opposite to the passage is an opening in the wall 3 feet from the floor. This is the entrance to a cell or small chamber in the wall, 5 feet 8 inches long, 4½ feet wide, and 3½ high. A large flagstone is laid as a raised floor between the entrance and the inner end of the chamber. The entrance is 2 feet wide, 2½ high, and 22½ inches long. On the two opposite walls of the chamber are similar openings in the walls. The one on the right is 2½ feet wide, 2 feet 9 inches high, and 1 foot 8 inches long. It gives admission to a cell 6 feet 10 inches long, 4 feet 7 inches wide, 3½ feet high, and has a raised flagstone floor, as in the other chamber. The opening on the left is 2¼ feet wide, 2½ high, and 1¾ long, and about 3 feet above the floor of the chamber. The cell of which this is the entrance is 5 feet 7 inches long, 4 feet 8 inches wide, and 3 feet 4 inches high. It has no raised floor like the two other cells. The roofs, floors, and back walls of the cells are each formed by a single slab of stone, and stones corresponding in size and shape to the openings in the walls were found on the floor in front of them. The natural inference is that they were originally the seals of the chambers in which the honoured dead reposed.

      The four walls of the central chamber converge towards the top by the successive projection of each stone or flag, commencing about 6 feet from the level of the floor, as is usually found to be the style of building, both in the Pict’s houses or burghs, and in the still more primitive subterranean dwellings known as Weems. The top of the chamber would thus necessarily be of small dimensions, and the aperture easily closed by one large flagstone. This top, or cover stone, together with a considerable portion of the upper part of the walls, has been thrown down, and the highest part of the existing walls is only about 13 feet from the level of the floor. At that point, the opposite walls have approached to within 10 feet of each other, so that the chamber is now 15 feet square at the floor, and 10 feet at the top of the walls, in their present condition.