Orkney Islands - 13

The floor area of the houses is some 36 square metres compared with the 61.5 square metres of a modern two-bedroomed semi-detached house or apartment in Britain today. So, the houses are quite spacious - although, being just one room, they may not appear so. It is perhaps worth noting that the small size of the house doorways doesn't mean that the people themselves were small - merely that small doorways offer good draught-proofing from Orcadian winds.



The beams supporting the roof would have been whalebone or timber - perhaps varying from house to house, depending on what was available. the roofs themselves were probably made from turf, held down by a network of weighted ropes of twisted heather.