Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/403

 KILCHURN CASTLE 383 THIRD PERIOD The plan of this keep (Fig. 331) has some peculiarities. The entrance door is in the north wall, on the ground floor, and the stair to the upper floors starts from the opposite corner of that floor. The stair is unusually easy, being a square stair, so arranged that small vaulted rooms are pro- vided on each side of it at the east end of the keep. The exterior is of the usual plain style, and is built with granite rubble-work. The corbels carry- ing the corner bartizans are all cut out of the hardest gneiss, or granite. EARL COUNTESS JOHN OFBREOALBAN MARY CAMPBELL FIG. 331. Kilchurn Castle. Plans. The additions were built in 1693, this date being carved on the work in two places, viz., the entrance door and the door to the stair turret on the south side of the keep. The first of these inscriptions is rather remarkable, and might be misleading. The original lintel of the entrance door of the keep has been removed, and a new lintel (see sketch, Fig. 331) inserted, bearing the date 1693, and the initials and arms of John, first Earl of Breadalbane, and of his second wife, Countess Mary Stewart or Campbell. Another curious circumstance connected with this door is, that it is the only entrance to the castle, so that to get into the quadrangle one