PASSAGIUM REGINAE The - Royal Dunfermline

There is still much of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century masonry
to be seen at Limekilns, and, as their foundations tell us, some of the „houses‟
are built on the site of much older ones. But only „The King‟s Cellar,‟ as a
habitable place, takes us back to a more remote period. Several doorways are
out of place – they have belonged to older and more important buildings; but
no doorway – excepting two in „The King‟s Cellar,‟ which are of much
earlier date – belongs to a period earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth
century, unless it be the one which is seen in Plate VIII. This doorway
possesses an enormous lintel, made of two separate stones, the easternmost
one of which extends so far east that it does duty for a quoin-stone as well.
Having had no relieving-arch above it, it has given way on the west side.
There is a curious little „squinch‟ to the left of the doorway, which has beaten
many heads to say why it is there.
The best-known inscribed door-lintel in Limekilns to-day is one near the
west end of the village in „Hackett‟s Ha‟‟ (or Hackett‟s Hall). Very simple,
and but rudely incised, it recalls Joseph Wilson shipmaster, and his first wife,
Margaret Finlayson, who were married in 1774. The house itself seems to be
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