Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/190

FOURTH PERIOD 174 AUCHANS CASTLE Collarnie was in the possession of the Barclays for many centuries, and on the family becoming extinct about the beginning of this century, it was sold. AUCHANS CASTLE, AYRSHIRE. This mansion is pleasantly situated about four miles from the town of Troon, and within a mile of Dundonald Castle. It stands on a slightly elevated knoll in a well-sheltered nook of the precipitous rocky belt which forms the southern boundary of the wide alluvial plain watered by the Irvine and the Garnock. The house seems to have been originally designed on the L plan (Fig. 633), with a square tower containing the staircase in the re-enter- ing angle. It has afterwards been considered necessary to increase the accommodation, when the western wing has been lengthened. This addition was probably made to the plan before the building was com- pleted, as the whole mansion appears to be of about the same date. A circular stair turret, in connection with the extension of the western wing, gives access to the apartments in that part of the house, and also to the rooms adjoining in the central portion. In consequence of the mansion having been in recent years divided up into workmen's houses, the original arrangements have been a good deal interfered with, by the insertion of modern partitions and the opening up of new doorways, etc. Besides, some of these houses are untenanted and locked up, and other parts are in a very decayed and unsafe condition. A good deal of the building is thus either altered or inaccessible, and there is some difficulty in determining the original destination of all the apartments. The ground floor appears to have been partly occupied as stores and partly as rooms, with the kitchen in the western wing. The building bears the date of 1644, a period when the provisions for defence were dropping into disuse. We still find, however, some shot-holes near the entrance doorway. The first floor contained a suite of principal rooms. That in the western wing is now called the dining-room, but it seems rather to have been intended as the private room and bedroom of the proprietor. It is panelled in wood, with pilasters at the salient angles, and we understand that it was adorned with a marble mantelpiece, which has been removed to the modern mansion of the same name in the neighbourhood. This room contains an alcove or recess, enclosed with large folding-doors and ornamented with pilasters, adjoining which there is a small dressing-room with a window. These features, which from the style of the finishings are evidently original, lead to the conclusion that this was a private room, containing a bed recess, and not the dining-room. The south-western