Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/230

FOURTH PERIOD 214 NOTLAND CASTLE The castle is of two periods. The first and main portion (shaded black 011 plan, Fig. 672) is an oblong measuring 87 feet by 36 feet, with a tower at two of the uiagonally opposite angles. It will be observed that in this instance the angle towers are square, not round, like those we have hitherto considered. The south-western tower, which measures about 30 feet square, contains the great staircase. The other tower measures about 27 feet square at the base. Above the ground floor its short north-west side is thrown off the square by corbel- ling, in order to contain garde-robes and a small staircase, as will be seen from the drawings (Fig. 673). One of the most extraordinary features of the castle is the number of large shot-holes which bristle in three or four tiers round its walls. In this respect it has been not Fio. (573. Notlaml Castle. View from the North- West. inaptly compared with the hull of a man-of-war ship. These shot- holes number, in the present ruinous state of the castle, no fewer than sixty-one, and there seem to have been nine more in the ruined tower at the west end, besides some five or six in the interior walls commanding the entrance and staircase. They vary from 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and are splayed outwards and inwards. Many of them have slot-holes inside, as if for a cross-bar, similar to what is found at Ravenscraig, in Fife. The entrance doorway, which is at the re-entering angle of the south-west tower, leads directly into the staircase, through the large newel of which a shot-hole fronts the visitor. The ground floor of the main building, which is vaulted throughout,