These details are taken from a paper by William Borlase, Esq., in the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_, 1868 (Second Series, vol. iv. p. 161), where a ground plan and sections, with woodcuts of the structural appearance of the building are given. Mr. Borlase mentions other structures of the same class at Pendeen, Bolleit, Chysoster, and Bodinar.
Paper by J. T. Blight, Esq., in _Archæologia_, vol. xl. p. 113, with ground plan and woodcuts.
Like the Scottish examples the Earth-houses of Cornwall are long narrow galleries of dry-built masonry, but they are not so strongly marked by the peculiar feature of single or double curvature which distinguishes the Scottish group. They are comparatively few in number, and any indications of the period of their occupation that have been observed point also to a time not far distant from the close of the Roman occupation of the country. No other group of such underground structures is known in any other part of Europe, or indeed anywhere else in the world. These excavated chambers, possessing the characteristics which have been described, are peculiar to the Celtic area, and the specially typical form with the strongly marked curvature is found only in Scotland.
Of the culture and civilisation of the people who constructed these strange subterranean cells, it may be impossible in the present condition of our knowledge to form an adequate estimate. But we can say this of them with certainty, that whatever may have been the special motives and circumstances that induced them to give this peculiar expression to their architectural efforts, they exhibit in other respects evidences of culture which, though it may be held to be inferior in range and quality to the culture of the Christian time, compares not unfavourably (so far as it goes) with that which is exhibited in connection with the superior architecture of the Brochs.
And while on all these lines of investigation we have traced the manifestations of these early forms of culture and civilisation up to points at which they seem to touch the culture and civilisation of the Roman Empire, it is to be observed that they do no more than touch it—they are not merged in it. In all their distinctive features they are still Celtic, and Celtic exclusively. There is nothing Roman in the forms of the prevailing types; there is nothing Roman in the art that decorates these forms; there is nothing Roman in the typical character of the structures in which they are found. The forms, the art, and the architecture are those of Scotland’s Iron Age—the Pagan Period of her Celtic people.