Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/238

FOURTH PERIOD 222 DROCHIL CASTLE completely into two blocks, each containing rooms entering from the gallery, and lighted by windows on onejside only. The entrance was on the ground floor, and there was an outer door at each end of the gallery. The prin- cipal entrance door was at the west end, immediately adjoining which was the principal staircase leading to the upper floors, but now entirely destroyed. A passage sloping downwards from.this point leads to the south - west tower, which seems to have been the guard-room. At the east end of the corridor, on the north side, is the kitchen, with its great fireplace, drain, and service-window. The remainder of the basement is occupied with vaulted cellars, having small windows set high in the wall. The whole of this floor, including the towers, is vaulted. On the first floor, the FIG. 678. Drochii Castle. Plans. great hall and private room are situated on the south side of the gallery, and four bedrooms (each with a garde-robe) on the north side. The hall is 50 feet long by 22 feet wide, and was lighted with three windows to the south and one to the west. The fireplace has had hand- some jambs, with a spiral shaft, a small fragment of which still remains (see sketch in corner of Fig. 679)- Opposite the fireplace are the remains of a carved stone sideboard. The south-west tower contained a room entering from the hall, with small staircase to the floor above corbelled out in the angle. The private room is at the east end of the hall. The withdrawing-room was no doubt situated over the hall, where it would have an extensive view and a fine southern exposure. There was a story containing bedrooms above it, but the upper floors of this division of the castle do not now exist. The walls of the upper floors of the north division, however, still