Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/146

FOURTH PERIOD 130 KELLIE CASTLE stands anglewise on plan to the rest of the building (walls of enceinte being scarcely ever at right angles). It is further provided with a separate stair of its own x and is as much an independent tower as the original north-west one. The date is in a most singular place, and from being so high up, it evidently indicates that only the top story, from the level where the wall is thinned,, was built in 1573. It may be that the main building running from this tower westwards, containing the kitchen and hall, was also built in 1573. There is an awkwardness in the way in which this building joins the east tower on the west side, but which, on the supposition that the east tower existed first, may be explained thus. The builders of 1 573 found two towers standing on the old walls of enceinte, about 50 feet apart, and these they joined with a building at right angles to the principal tower, and the junction at the lesser tower turned out in the awkward way referred to, and now seen at the castle. This having been the method of procedure with the enlarging of the main portion of the building, its embellishment with dormers was, as already stated, the work of the fifth Lord Oliphant in 1606; and, as the monograph suggests, the turrets which stand out so boldly from the corners both of the northern and southern towers were likely erected at the same time. It is not improbable that the same Lord Oliphant may also have increased the size of the hall windows, which were so famous in the country-side that when Sir Philip Anstruther, in 1633, erected his house in the neighbourhood (now no longer in existence) it was stipulated in the original contract with Alexander Nesbit, Deacon of the Masons in Edinburgh, that the windows of the hall " should be as large and complete as those in the hall of Kellie." The south-west tower, containing the principal entrance, was pro- bably built by the fourth Lord in 1573 on the walls of enceinte, as already mentioned ; at all events, this tower and the main building run- ning east and west were, we may take it, built at the same time, as the angle turret joining the two seems to indicate. The centre gable shown on Fig. 587, with its moulded crow-steps and diagonally placed chimneys, is stated in the monograph to be part of the alterations made in 1606, and it resembles in its details other buildings of the early part of the seventeenth century, such as Wintoun House, Moray House, and Heriot's Hospital. This gable does not represent the form of the roof behind, which is at a considerably lower level, so that as it stands its upper part is merely ornamental. Possibly it represents an intention never fully carried out. At the time of the alteration the wall beneath this gable has been mostly rebuilt, the disturbed appearance of the masonry from above the ground floor level being quite apparent. The whole ground floor of the castle is vaulted. The main entrance is in the east face of the south-west wing. Immediately in front is the