Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/592

 THIRD PERIOD 572 DUNNOTTAR CASTLE north-east angle turret, and also a back-door towards the sea. The passage contains a long stone shelf for placing the dishes on as brought out from the kitchen. The upper floor is approached by a grand square staircase in the tower in the north-east angle of the courtyard, the steps being 6 feet 6 inches wide. This leads to the hall or dining-room, 54| feet long by 20 feet wide, beyond which is the withdrawing-room, 29 feet long by 20 feet wide. From the latter there was an access to the long gallery at the west end, and also to the private room there, thus forming a complete suite of public apartments, such as was usual in France and England in the seventeenth century. At the east end of the dining-room there is the usual private room. Passing to the east range, we find an anteroom at the top of the stair, with a small window overlooking the entrance door and staircase. Entering from this is a large bedroom, and beyond it a sitting-room or boudoir, with a private passage to the outside, and a small apartment for a servant or a wardrobe. A narrow newel stair goes up from the land- ing of the main stair, and led to rooms in the tower over the staircase, and perhaps to attic rooms in the roof. The stone cornice of the east range next the courtyard has been ornamented, as shown in the drawing (Fig. 484). The large tank in the courtyard may probably have been partly supplied by a spring, and partly by rain-water collected from the roofs. The principal supply of water to the castle was from the " Barrel Well " on the mainland, from which wooden pipes are said to have been led to the castle, but there is no indication of their having been brought to this tank. The tank is funnel-shaped in section, the sides which are built with stone sloping till they come to a point at the depth of 25 feet. There are the remains of a stair for access to the water opposite the kitchen door, and a pipe from the tank supplied water to the brewhouse. The quadrangle was almost certainly erected by Earl George Keith (born 1553). He was a great traveller and student, and a celebrated man in his day. He founded the Marischal College in Aberdeen in 15.Q3, and was Lord High Commissioner to the Scotch Parliament in 1609. He died at Dunnottar in 1623. The last addition to the buildings of the castle is the projecting wing at the north-east angle of the quadrangle. This contains on the ground floor a vaulted apartment 58 feet long by 15 feet wide. It seems to have been originally intended for stores, but has since obtained an unenviable notoriety as the prison of the Covenanters. In this cellar one hundred and ten prisoners (men, women, and children) were confined during a whole summer, which of itself would be cruelty enough, without taking into account the tortures they are said to have been subjected to.