Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/64

FOURTH PERIOD SPEDLIN S TOWER higher than the older one in the same wall (Fig. 514). There is a smaller window at a high level above that in the south wall (see Section). This would give light to the upper part of the hall, and may have lighted a minstrels' gallery at the south end, which would be the natural position for such a gallery. From the hall a newel staircase in the south-west angle of the walls leads to the upper floors. We were informed that formerly the prison entered by a hatch from the landing where this staircase begins, but owing to the noisy ghost of a man named Porteous, who had accidentally been starved to death in the " pit " (see Grose), the latter was filled up with earth, and is now, together with the staircase, almost entirely choked with branches and other rubbish brought there by the jackdaws. The two vaulted stories represent, in our opinion, the castle which must have stood here in the fifteenth century. FIG. 515. Spedlin's Tower. North End of Hall. Above this level the design and arrangements of the building are quite different. The exterior walls are thinned off to 3 feet 6 inches in thickness. The windows are larger, and present a much more modern appearance in their internal arrangements (see Section).