Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/483

RUTHVEN CASTLE 46? FOURTH PERIOD the north and south sides being barracks, three stories in height, for the troops, and those on the east and west sides being enclosing walls with a series of open arched recesses on the inner sides. These were intended to support a wide platform (in the position of the old parapet walk) on which guns might be worked. The principal entrance is in the centre of the east wall, and the access to the platform of this wall was by out- side stairs at the north and south ends. Access to the platform of the west wall was obtained by a wide open staircase facing the principal entrance. The postern to the stable court was under this staircase. The barracks contained two rooms on each floor with a central staircase. The windows are all towards the courtyard the openings in the outer walls on each floor being loopholes for musketry fire. The enclosing walls are all similarly loopholed. The outside faces of the walls are enfiladed from two towers at the north-east and south-west angles of the quadrangle exactly on the same principle as in the old Z plan. The north-east tower appears to have contained the guard-rooms, and the south-west tower the kitchen. The latrines were at the north-west and south-east angles. Between the quadrangle and the detached building to the north there is a large level grass-grown court suitable for drill. The northern building has walls one story high, with wide doorways, above which there seems to have been a great loft in the roof approached by an open staircase in the centre. These outbuildings were probably the stables, with hay-loft above. The walls are loopholed on the ground floor like those of the barracks, and have large windows in the gables. The small rooms adjoining the stables were probably guard-rooms and harness-rooms. In this eighteenth-century barrack we find a complete departure from almost all the ideas which prevailed in earlier times. We also see here the more complete carrying out of some of the ideas of which we have met with some partial examples, as at Mar Castle and Corgarff. FOURTH PERIOD DEPARTURES FROM TRADITIONAL PLANS. We have now traced the various developments of the different forms of plan adopted in Scotland from ancient times. We have seen these plans pass through many modifications, while still retaining as their central or leading feature the original idea of the keep or the courtyard. Even in the latest buildings above described, in which the Renaissance style has in other respects completely superseded the native architecture, the ancient form of plans is more or less preserved. But at last the plansj following the other departments of the architecture, also yielded