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



Wall. — The thickness of the wall varies at different places from 

 1 5 feet 3 inches to 19 feet 2 inches. There is nothing to show 

 that a bench or narrow terrace ever existed round the bottom of 

 the wall in the interior. The portions of the wall still re- 

 maining are quite perpendicular. 



Doorway. — The doorway and passage which led through the 

 wall from without to the area within, lay on the east side of the 

 building. This passage may still be partially traced, but not so 

 as to admit of admeasurement in all its dimensions. It appears 

 however that the length of the passage was 17 feet. The external 

 entrance of it was entire about the year 1793, and is said to have 

 been low and narrow, and covered with very large stones. In- 

 deed some large stones still lie at this part of the ruin. At the 

 place where the inner doorway of the passage must have existed 

 there are two large stones, 5 feet 4 inches apart, which may have 

 been its corners. No doubt a door of this width could not, 

 like the one on the outside, be said to be narrow ; but if the 

 passage between them went through a chamber in the interior 

 of the wall, as there are some reasons to believe, it may have 

 been made wider at one place than the other*. 



Cells.— In the heart of the walls open spaces formerly ex- 

 isted. These spaces are now filled up with rubbish, but the 

 sides of them are more or less apparent in most parts of the circle. 

 In two places we can trace the entire figures of distinct cham- 

 bers. These form long narrow apartments, of which the ends 

 are semicircular and the sides partake of the curvature of the 

 walls. In breadth they are both about 7 feet, and in length 

 they are respectively about 33 and 23 feet. One of them seems 

 to have been divided by a partition with a doorway in it. There 

 are indications of an entrance to each of these cells from the 

 central area of about 3 feet in width. Other two cells lie on 

 each side of the entrance passage, both of the same breadth as 

 the rest. It does not appear whether they had any direct com- 

 munication with that passage by doorways, or whether they 

 were not entirely open to it, forming in that case one large 

 chamber with the passage going through the middle of it. The 

 other vacant spaces are all of the width of 7 feet, except one 



* " There was a low narrow door covered with immense large stones on 

 the east side that led into the interior of the building, all of which have 

 been long ago removed for enclosing the adjoining fields." (Blackadder's 

 MS. 1834.) 



Chalmers in his description of the building says that it had " two entries, 

 one on the south, and the other at no great distance on the south-west." 

 But in making this statement he has misconceived the authority which he 

 has referred to. That authority is the ' Scots Magazine,' and the entries 

 there spoken of as on the south and south-west are expressly said to be 

 those " which run over the trenches." 



