Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/149

 CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE - 129 FIRST PERIOD capitulation of the garrison, which was found to consist of only sixty men. The towers were probably then demolished, as in the case of Dirleton Castle, also besieged by Edward, where the stump of one of the demolished round towers is incorporated with the walls of the existing castle, which was erected about 100 years later. The buildings of the second period are immediately behind the round towers, at the entrance gateway, and comprised some 10 or 12 feet of the outer walls where the latter join the towers. This part of the walls is of a different style of workmanship and materials from the older part, but it is probably a rebuilding or repair of the original design. The northern point of this portion of the building formed the original entrance, and part of the old front is still standing at about 1 1 feet in from the present doorway. At this place an opening is seen in the roof (section, Fig. 102), in length the full breadth of the passage by 2 feet wide, leading up to the room, afterwards added, from which the port- cullis and drawbridge were worked. In the face of the wall forming the south side of this opening there still exists a narrow loophole, some 8 or 9 feet in length by about 2 inches in width, widened at the base, so that it exactly resembles a spade (sketch, Fig. 102). The base is sharply splayed so as to give an almost perpendicular aim. The whole will be recognised at once as the kind of slit so commonly seen in the outer walls of Edwardian castles. In its present position, with a wall 2 feet in front of it, such a contrivance would be useless. This conclu- sively shows, even in the absence of the other evidence, referred to further on, that the present entrance doorway, with portcullis-room above, have been added in front of the old entrance at a later date, and that the inner wall with the Edwardian loop formed the exterior face of the castle. If therefore the buildings of the second period are Edwardian, the build- ings of the first period may well have been those against which Edward laid siege. The original entrance doorway was thus deeply recessed between the double towers referred to by Walter of Exeter, as was usual at that time. The round towers were, as we shall see, rebuilt at a later period, when they were probably carried up on the old foundations, and the new gateway, etc., added in front of the old one. In the room immediately behind the above loophole there is a round arch 6 feet 3 inches wide, now built up (Fig. 105). This evidently led into a wall recess out of which the slit opened, as at Dunstaffnage and other early examples. This recess formed the room from which the original portcullis was worked ; the groove for the portcullis still remains in the masonry. The third period of building operations comprises the front, with its twin towers, the two southern angle towers, and probably a contraction of the passage at the inner end of the entrance passage. The imperfect junction in the arching of the passage where the work of this period joins that of the second period is quite obvious. The different style of