Tealing Earth House

A bright, mild, sunny day.

I carried on reading Children's Hearing notes in the morning and then we went to the Church Cafe for Lunch. We don't get many people coming but there are a good number of regulars.

Afterwards, we visited the village of Tealing, just off the A90 north of Dundee. We had often noticed the sign to an Earth House and since it was such a lovely day we decided to have a look.

Despite their name, earth houses were not dwellings but stone-lined underground passages. Where they have been excavated, associated buildings have been found at ground level. Earth houses are also known by their French name souterrain, and are found in Brittany, Cornwall and Ireland as well as Scotland.

Earth houses are found on the eastern seaboard of Scotland, from Lothian to Shetland. There are distinct regional types. They range from the massive earth houses of Angus and Perthshire to much smaller ones in the Northern Isles. The latter date from around 400 BC, whereas the former were most likely built in the first two centuries AD.

All sorts of suggestions have been advanced as to what earth houses were used for, including hiding places. But they were probably little more than cold stores, their cool, dry conditions suitable for grain and other produce.

We also visited a nearby Dovecot, built in 1595, which is still a very solid building. It would have held up to 2,000 pigeon nesting boxes and provided an extra source of food during the long winter months.

It was really good to get so much fresh air and I am definitely feeling much better.


If you would like to see a couple more pictures of the Earth House and the Dovecot, as well as information boards, you might want to head over to my Flikr album.