Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/568

 THIRD PERIOD 548 MORTON CASTLE to admit of the roof of the outhouses resting against that wall. The castle itself has been two stories high, the ground floor evidently having contained the kitchen and other offices, and the upper floor the great hall. The length of the building inside the walls is 105 feet, by 31 feet wide. The ground floor was lighted with nine square-shaped windows about 15 inches wide and 12 inches high, set high in the walls, and provided with stone steps in the ingoing leading up to them. These windows and several other features, such as the main entrance, with its drawbridge and portcullis, and the side doorway to the first floor (to be afterwards referred to), are very similar to the corresponding features of Tullyallaii Castle. The ground floor contains stone sinks with drains under two of the windows, and a large fireplace at the east end. There has also been a garde-robe entering from the east room (probably the kitchen) in the wall of the eastern tower, and another entering from the room in the tower. These have shoots to an outlet or passage with sloping sill, which cuts across the gorge of the tower (see enlarged Plan, Fig. 46'5). This passage has an upright groove in the masonry on each side, in which a sliding board or stone was evidently made to work, and which could be lifted, so as to allow the soil to escape and the passage to be cleared out. The south-east tower is greatly damaged, but it has evidently formed a private room entering off the hall on the upper floor, while the room on the ground floor seems also to have entered from the hall by a stair dorm, as there is no access to it from the basement. The hall has been a splendid apartment Q3 feet by 31 feet, and pro- bably had an open timber roof. It is lighted to the south (Fig. 467) by three double windows with square heads and centre mullion and transom. There is now a fourth similar window on this side at a lower level, but this has evidently been an insertion. The position now occupied by this window has originally been occupied with an entrance door, similar to that on the first floor at Tullyallan, and also to that at Rait Castle. The present w r indow sill is at the level of the floor (where the door sill would naturally be), and there is a bold saving arch in the wall over the lintel at a suitable height for a door. This door would give easy and safe ingress and egress, without the necessity of putting in operation the heavy machinery of the great gateway. The openings in the north wall still remain to be noticed. That near the east end of the wall has the outer lintel supported with a continuous corbel, such as is often seen in small passages. It may have been a door communicating with an upper story over the outbuildings at this point. The western window (Fig. 466) is a very handsome one, and is the