Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/107

 DUNSTAFFNAGE CASTLE 87 FIRST PERIOD yard, at the inner end of the entrance passage, there is a pointed archway (Figs. 60 and 62) also built up, and containing a late lintelled doorway. This archway is 9 feet wide, and possibly it represents the original entrance fS FIG. 62. Dunstaffnage Castle. View in Courtyard. to the courtyard through what may have been an oblong tower, somewhat on the lines of the sixteenth-century building now standing in this position. Right opposite the entrance at the north-west corner of the castle is the keep, circular to the outside, and set in a slight recess of the north and west curtains, and square to the courtyard, but with the inner angle rounded. Fig. 63 shows that the circular form of the tower on plan is contracted at the base against the north wall, that it spreads out somewhat in the middle, and attains its full circumference only towards the top. Over all, this tower measures about 28 feet by 25 feet. It stands upon the highest part of the rock, with its ground floor, about 6 feet above the courtyard, reached by a stair, of which the ruined foundation still exists, along the south face. At the head of this stair is the doorway, inside of which, in the thickness of the wall, a circled stair leads on the right to the floor above. Inside of this again on the left is a bar-hole for closing the inner door of the basement floor, which was probably used as a store for provisions. The keep comprises three low stories, having arched recesses in the wall, with long narrow slits or loop-holes for light and defence. The centre, which is a mere well some 10 or 11 feet in diameter, was floored over with wood. The upper floor, which is entered from the battlements, is 6 or 7 feet wider than the ground floor, the walls being thinned off internally. The interior of the keep is too ruinous to enable one to say