14 Mr. G. Turnbull on Edin's Hall. 



the tliickncss of the wall is 7 feet. This wall seems to have con- 

 tained no chambers or galleries. The next in importance of the 

 circular edifices measures 35 feet in external diameter, having its 

 wall 6 feet thick. Other two lie near what was probably the 

 original entrance across the ditches and ramparts, to be after- 

 wards noticed, and soem each to have been about 30 feet in ex- 

 ternal diameter. The other foundations run in lines nearly 

 straight, and meet at several points. Whether any of them 

 formed rectangular houses is uncertain, because the four sides of 

 such a house are nowhere to be seen. It may safely, however, 

 be assumed that most of them were merely the division-walls of 

 oj)en spaces, these spaces being of considerable size. Some of 

 these walls abut upon the towers, as if the latter had been con- 

 nected with court-yards. 



Fortifications. — The buildings have been protected by rude 

 fortifications. The keep is surrounded, or nearly so, by a wall, 

 enclosing an area of a very irregular shape, measuring from north 

 to south about 210 feet, and from east to west about 180 feet. 

 This wall joins the principal subordinate building already de- 

 scribed ; on the east, north and west it is composed of stone, 

 the foundations measuring at different places 6^ and 7^ feet in 

 thickness ; on the south towards the hill, this wall is composed 

 of earth thrown up into the form of a high mound, having a 

 trench on its outer side. Beyond this defence, sweeping round 

 all the buildings, where the ground naturally affords the easiest 

 access to them (that is to say, on the east, south and 

 south-west), are two mounds or ramparts of earth, having a 

 trench or dry ditch on the outer side, and a similar ditch be- 

 tween them. These ramparts and trenches vary in magnitude 

 at different places, being greatest where they face the hill. At 

 one place the ditch, notwithstanding the effect of time in fill- 

 ing it up, is still 13 feet deep, measured from the level of 

 the top of the rampart. On the west and north, where the 

 banks above the river form a natural defence, a single trench, 

 comparatively shallow, runs behind the wall which encloses the 

 keep, and is thence continued with the wall also till it meets the 

 other works. From the edge of the outer ditch, on the south- 

 western side of the fortress, a wall without trenches, of about 

 180 yards in length, runs down the hollow on the west until it 

 reaches the top of a small ravine descending to the river. The 

 entrance to the ground enclosed by these works seems to have 

 been on the east, as indicated by the mounds there. At differ- 

 ent places, particularly on the east and west, the ramparts are 

 now nearly levelled, and the ditches filled up to the surface of 

 the adjoining ground. Where the ramparts still remain there 

 are two openings through them, the one on the south and the 

 other on the south-west. These, though not apparently of mo- 



