Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/252

 THIRD PERIOD 232 - MEARNS TOWER Adjoining the first floor entrance is a lighted wall closet, and at the opposite end is the fireplace, with windows in the side walls having stone seats. The upper floor is very similar in arrangement to the first. From its wall closet a garde-robe is projected on the south front. This is now very ruinous, only the supporting stone corbels remaining with the upper courses of the sloping stone roof. The continuation of the stair to the battlements is gone, as well as the " cape house " on the top of the stair and the parapets. There is a set-off inside the walls at the top, evidently for the support of roof beams, but of what form the roof was, whether flat or sloping, we cannot precisely say. From the terms of the licence to be presently quoted there was to be erected on the roof warlike apparatus for its defence, so that in all likelihood the roof was flat. Mr. Fraser, in his work on Caerlaverock, informs us of the important fact that James n., on the 15th March 1449, granted a licence to Herbert Lord Maxwell " to build a castle or fortalice on the Barony of Mearns in Renfrewshire, to surround and fortify it with walls and ditches, to strengthen it by iron gates, and to erect on the top of it all warlike apparatus necessary for its defence." This interesting circumstance adds greatly to the value of Mearns Castle historically, making it a standard by which we may estimate the date of other similar structures. Most of the buildings of this class and period being undated, any authentic information of this sort is of the utmost importance. We need have no hesitation in assuming that the fortalice was built shortly after the date of the licence, as it corresponds in general arrangements and in the style of its corbels with other castles, such as Borthwick, of which the date is known. In 1589 James vi. writes from Craigmillar to William, fifth Lord Herries, commanding him to deliver up the castles of Caerlaverock, Threave, Morton, and the place and fortalice of Mearns. About the middle of the seventeenth century Mearns was sold by the Earl of Nithsdale to Sir George Maxwell of Nether Pollok, in the immediate neighbourhood, and shortly afterwards it passed into the pos- session of the ancestors of its present possessor, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart. The castle has been in use till comparatively recent times as a place for local balls and festivities, but it is now entirely neglected, and is fast falling into utter ruin.