Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 9/52)

51.—Plan and Section of Chun Castle

Chûn Castle is in West Penwith, Cornwall; it was built about 2,500 years ago. Remains of tin smelting have been found there, strengthening the suggestions that tin mining was active in Cornwall [...] [more...]

52.—Plan of Chambers at Ballyhendon

“Camden has given a rude [crude] representation of two caverns near Tilbury in Essex, “spacious caverns in a chalky cliff, built very artificially of stone to the height of ten fathoms [18 metres, or 60 feet], and somewhat straight at the top. [...]” The universality of the practice is shown in the caves which were discovered in Ireland, in 1829, [...] [more...]

53.—Plan of Chambers on a Farm twelve miles from Ballyhendon

see Fig. 52 for notes.

54.—Ground Plan and Section of the Subterranean Chamber at Carrighhill.

I think the place mentioned is probably Carrick, and in particular either the neolithic Carrick East Burial Chamber or Carrigadoon Hill, but I am not certain. At any rate the text makes clear that it is in Ireland, but says nothing more. The cited archaeological report [...] [more...]

55.—Welsh Pigsty.

“Of the domestic buildings of the early Britons there are no remains, if we except some circular stone foundations, which may have been those of houses. It is concluded, perhaps somewhat too hastily, that their houses were little better than the huts of the rude tribes of Africa or Asia in our own day (Fig. 49). In the neighbourhood of Llandaff were, in King’s time, several modern pig-sties, of a peculiar construction; and he held that the form of these was derived from the dwellings of the ancient Britons. (Fig. 55.) This form [more...] [$]

56.—The Druid Grove.

A bearded and robed man sits in the shade of a giant tree, probably an oak tree; in the background a group of three robed figures surrounds a smaller tree. [more...]

57.—Ancient British Canoes.

“Some of the Roman writers might lead us to believe that the Britons had boats capable of distant navigation; but this is doubted by most careful inquirers. But the light boats which were peculiar to the island were certainly of a construction well suited to their objects; for Cæsa, in his History of the Civil War, tells us that he had learnt their [...]Arun, in the village of North Stoke, Sussex (Fig. 57). In draining the Martine Mere, or Marton Lake, in Lancashire, eight canoes, each formed of a single tree, were found sunk deep in the mud and sand.” (p. 22) [more...]

The Coronation Chair

The celebrated stone which now forms the seat of the coronation chair of the sovereigns of England is a flat stone, nearly square. It formerly stood in Argyleshire, according to Buchanan; who also says that King Kenneth, in the ninth century, transferred it to Scone, and enclosed it in a wooden chair. The monkish tradition was, that it was the identical [...] [more...]