Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/366

FOURTH PERIOD 350 FYVIE CASTLE about the year 1400. It consisted of a tower about 24 feet square, with a projecting wing for the staircase, square externally and circular inside. At the south-west corner is the Meldrum Tower, so called after the next proprietors of Fyvie, who possessed the estates from 1440 till 1596. They erected this part, and probably the whole range of the south front between this and the Preston Tower, except the Seton Tower in the centre, just described, which is evidently an addition built on to the front of what may be termed the south curtain. It is however to the Seton family, the successors of the Meldrums, in the person of Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie and Earl of Dunfermline, that the castle of Fyvie owes its greatest splendour. Besides building the tower above described, which bears his name, he adorned the Preston and Meldrum Towers with their fine turreted and ornamental upper stages, raising the staircase towers, enlarging the windows, and, in short, creating this splendid south front. It is not possible to say how much of the west side, to the north of the tower bearing their name, was built by the Meldrums, but the tower at the extreme north end of the west front was built by the Honourable General Gordon, second son of William, second Earl of Aberdeen, some time about the middle of last century, hence called the Gordon Tower. Although inferior in beauty and richness of detail to the Seton work, as might be expected considering its date, it forms a not inappropriate termination to this side of the castle. The only regret in connection with the Gordon Tower is that its erection necessitated the removal of the chapel, which stood on this site. The low one-story buildings inside the quadrangle (shown by hatched lines on the plan), which form the present entrance and corridor, are of comparatively recent erection. The original entrance to the courtyard was through the Seton Tower in the south front, guarded by an iron a yett" placed some 8 or 9 feet in from the outer door. Inside the " yett " a door on either hand leads to the guard-rooms, one in each drum tower. The vaulted entrance passage continues to the opposite wall, and from thence a corridor., right and left, runs round the castle, giving access to the various rooms and staircases. There is no entrance to the ground-floor chamber in the Meldrum Tower, which was probably reached through a trap-door down from the floor above, as is so frequently the case in Scottish houses. The great staircase adjoining the Gordon Tower is a splendid specimen of architectural skill, and, like all the ornamental work at Fyvie, was built by the Earl of Dunfermline. It is a wheel stair occupying a rectangular space which measures 20 feet 4 inches by 18 feet 6 inches, with a massive stone newel, 1 foot 9 inches in diameter. The steps are not generally in single stones. They have a rise of from 5j inches to 6 inches, while the average width of the treads at the wall is 2 feet 8 inches, and at the newel 3 inches to 3j inches. Adjoining the newel