Milton Of Whitehouse

NJ40SW 5 4172 0425.

(NJ 4172 0425) Pictish House (NR) (Remains of)

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)

The association of underground with overground dwellings is seen in the Milton of Whitehouse earthhouse, discovered and excavated in 1894. Situated in a sandy hillock it measures 37ft 6inches long internally. About nine feet of floor of the inner end is paved. No roofing stones were found so here, wood must have been the material employed. Finds included a piece of bronze wire, a stone whorl, fragments of clay vessels and querns and quantities of ash and charred wood. Before the discovery of the house large quantities of ash had been turned up bythe plough in a hollow in a field near the house.

18ft from the entrance there is a piece of pavement, 7ft 9inches long and 5ft 3inches at the broadest end. It consists of flat undressed stones raised above the level of the field. Ashes were found round it. No doubt the remains of an overground dwelling the perishable parts of which have disappeared.

J Abercromby 1904; J G Michie 1910; A Ogston 1931.