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Brechin, ISA April, 1842.
Dear Sib,—The obstacles alluded to in my last letter having all been
removed, Mr M‘Cosh and I proceeded on this day week, Wednesday, 6th April,
to excavate the interior of the Round Tower of Brechin. Sir James Carnegie,
Baronet* of Southesque, our principal heritor, taking an active interest in
our proceedings, and Patrick Chalmers, Esquire, of Aldbar, having
volunteered in the most handsome manner to pay all expenses, although,
unfortunately, from bis bad state of health, he is unable to witness our
proceedings, and has, in consequence of continued indisposition, been
obliged to resign the seat he held in Parliament for this district of
burghs, a circumstance which has thrown this quarter into a fever of
politics, for it will be no easy matter to find a man possessed of all Mr
Chalmers’s qualifications to fill his room.
The round tower of Brechin,
you will recollect, has a doorway on the west side, the sill of which is six
feet seven inches from the ground, and this door-way being filled up with
stonework, our first proceeding was to open it I went down on Wednesday
morning by six o'clock (I wish to be minute) accompanied by David Black,
carpenter in Brechin, and James Jolly, mason in Brechin, and these
tradesmen, in my presence, carefully removed the stones which blocked up the
doorway, leaving the arch free and uninjured, and displaying a handsome
entrance into the tower. A set of wooden steps were then fitted to give
access by the door, while precautions were adopted for shutting up the tower
when the workmen were not there, so as to prevent any person introducing
modem antiques for our annoyance. After removing some old wood and other
lumber, recently placed there by the church officers, James Jolly was left
alone, as the circle of the tower did not give scope for more workmen. He
then proceeded to dig amongst the loose earth, and has been so employed till
to-day, being from time to time visited by Mr M'Cosh and me. Each shovelful
as dug up was carefully sifted and thrown into a heap; this sifted earth,
when accumulated into a small heap was then thrown out at the door of the
tower and down the wooden steps alluded to; after this the earth was put, by
a spadeful at a time, into a barrow, and wheeled to a corner of the
churchyard. Here again, the earth was thrown by a shovel into a cart* and
then driven away. By this repeated handling I think it next to impossible
that anything of the least consequence could have escaped observation. I
directed James Jolly to keep a regular journal of his proceedings, and each
evening, when he gave up work, he brought it to the British Linen Company’s
bank office, and left with the accountant, Mr Robert Lindsay, the articles
found each day, and Mr Lindsay again labelled and marked the articles so
found. David Black, the carpenter, is Mr M'Cosh’s tradesman, a roaster
workman, and an individual of undoubted character. James Jolly is a
journeyman mason, a very intelligent man, and a person upon whose integrity
ample reliance can be placed; and Mr Lindsay, with whom I have been
acquainted through life, and who has now been with me for thirteen years
continuously, is a man of the greatest probity. I am fully satisfied,
therefore, that we have got a careful and correct account of everything
found in the tower.
James Jolly has now dug seven
feet below the door-sill, that is, he is about five inches below the
external ground line and hewn basement or plinth, and has come to where the
hewn work ceases, and rude, undressed stones form the building of the tower.
At this depth we stop until we hear from you. We have not reached the virgin
rock on which the tower is built, but we have now reached the clay, and till
or sand rock, which appears to hare been disturbed, as if it were what had
been dug out for the foundation, and thrown into the centre of the tower.
Until this depth we have dug through a fine mould, composed of decayed wood,
and other vegetable matter, mixed up with a little animal matter. We found a
quantity of peats, and a good deal of dross of peats, or refuse of moss; and
we also found great varieties of bones, principally sheep bones, especially
jaw-bones of sheep, some bones of oxen, and a few human bones, these last
being vertebrae pieces of skulls, toes, and bits of jawbones. These bones
were found at all depths, but we found no bones of any size. We have
likewise got a quantity of slates, a hewn stone for the top of a
lancet-shaped arch ; part of the sill of a window, with the base of a
mullion traced on.it; some basement stones, and others of coarser
workmanship. Oyster shells, buckies, or sea shells, old nails, buttons, bits
of copperas, two small lumps of bell metal, and three little bits of stained
glass have also been found at different depths, and yesterday we found the
remains of a key. But what will most please your pagan friends is the fact
that since we were down about three feet, we have each day found various
pieces of urns or jars. None of the pieces, although put together form a
complete urn, but I think amongst the pieces I can trace out three or four
distinct vessels. One appears to have been of glazed earthenware, and to
have had little handles as thus {figured in the letter), while round the
inner ledge there are small round indentations; about a third of this vessel
remains as marked by the dotted tinea Other two vessels are of clay,
regularly baked apparently, but not glazed, and one is slightly ornamented
round the edge, thus (figured in the letter), the in-dentations being
evidently made by alternately pressing the thumb and forefinger horizontal,
and the thumb perpendicular in the wet clay.
Now, how came all these
things there ? I am afraid you will set me down, not for a pagan, but for a
veritable heathen, when I say that my opinion is, the slates, glass, wood,
and iron, had been tossed in, at what in Scotland is called the Reformation,
when our Scotch apostle, John Knox, drove your Roman apostles from what he
termed their rookeries; that the bones and great part of the animal and
vegetable matter had been carried to the top of the tower by the rooks and
jackdaws (kaes of Scotland) for building their nests, and feeding their
young, and had tumbled from thence to the bottom of the tower; that the
peats and the rest of the stuff had been thrown at various times into the
bottom of the tower as a general receptacle for all refuse/, and that the
fragments of urns or jars are just the remains of culinary articles
belonging to the different kirk-officers.
After this declaration, can I
expect to hear from you again, advising me what further we ought to do in
regard to our round tower, which, in my eyes, remains as great a mystery as
ever.
The steeple of the church of
Montrose was rebuilt some eight years ago, on the site of a steeple which
had existed beyond the memory of man. It was thought necessary to dig the
foundation of the new tower deeper than the old had been founded, and in the
course of this excavation, various skeletons were found buried amongst sand
and gravel—the subsoil on which the town of Montrose stands. The fact of
bodies being buried below towers and steeples then will scarce prove the
erections to be either Christian or pagan.
The tracings which you sent
of Cloyne Tower, represent very closely the style of building of the round
tower of Brechin, especially where two or more horizontal stones are
connected by a smaller perpendicular one, thus (figured in letter), and also
where one is laid with a little toe, or thinner part of it projecting, as it
were beyond itself, over another stone, as sketched above. In Brechin, too,
as at Cloyne, we found it impossible to drive a nail into the joints of the
doorway, while into some parts of the general masonry I have thrust my cane
with ease for several inches. Sir William Gell, you remark, gives drawings
of a similar mode of building in the vicinity of Rome, but is this not just
a mode common to all nations in their rude state, who put up as large stones
as they can find or move with ease, and bring them together by means of
smaller pieces ?
I was prepared to have made
some remarks on Mr Windele’s letters to you, but fear I have already brought
sufficiency of round towers down on my head. I postpone saying anything on
this subject till I see Mr Windele’s book, which you are so kind as to
promise me.—Believe me, dear sir, yours very truly,
D. D. Black.
P.S.—I have, of course,
carefully preserved the urns and other relics found. |
