Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/172

SECOND PERIOD 152 DRUM CASTLE access to a straight stair in the thickness of the east wall, leading to the basement floor (Fig. 1 1 8), which is vaulted, and measures 29 feet long by 15 feet wide. The walls of the basement are 12 feet thick, and are pierced with only two narrow loops at the east and west ends. In a recess in the north-east angle of the walls is the well, 3 feet in diameter, and furnished with a stone trough and drain to the outside. Judging by the small windows, now built up, which are visible in the outer walls, there have been wall recesses off the hall on the first floor, and probably also a small entresol entering from the stair. The second floor (Fig. 119) also consists of a single large hall the full size of the building, viz., 35 feet long by 21 feet wide. The walls are here about 9 feet thick. This space is covered in with a pointed barrel vault, measuring 24 feet from the floor to the apex ; but this height has been divided into two with a wooden floor, the corbels for supporting which are visible in the walls on both sides. The lower of these apartments was no doubt the owner's private hall, and the upper space, in the vault, contained bedrooms (as at Craigmillar, etc.) The hall is lighted with windows on every side, those in the north and south wall being 2 feet 3 inches wide and having stone seats in the recess. That in the west wall is a mere loop. There is a garde-robe in the north-west angle and a fireplace in the north wall. The newel stair in the south-east angle does not go higher than this floor. The access to the upper floor and to the battlements seems to have been by a solid oak stair starting in the north-east angle of the hall, where some relics of the steps can still be traced. It is said in the New Statistical Account of Aberdeenshire that the tower " had originally an alcoved roof of considerable height, which has long been removed, and one of less altitude with flat roof has been sub- stituted." The present slated roof rests on the pointed vault above referred to. Possibly there may have been formerly an attic floor above this vault, entering from the battlements, and serving as a guard-room. This is frequently the case, as at Borthwick, Clackmannan, Alloa, etc. The battlements here are of unusual height (Fig. 120). This is caused by the stone gutter forming the parapet walk being stepped down from the angles to the centre of the east and west walls, where there is only one drain and gargoyle to let off the whole of the water from each end. The same stepping of the gutter is continued along the north and south sides, but there are two drains on each of those sides. The parapet rests on a corbel table, which is continued round the circled angles of the building in a continuous string-course, above which the parapet is also rounded and heightened at the angles, but it does not project so as to form a bartizan of the usual form. The height from