Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/144

 FOURTH PERIOD 128 KELLIE CASTLE the hands of the Oliphants, and may have existed in the days of the Sewards." We agree with the Professor in thinking that this is probably the oldest part of the castle, but we cannot indorse his opinion as to its antiquity. It seems to us to have been erected at least a century after the date last mentioned. FIG. 586. Kellie Castle. Plans. Kellie has not the massive design and construction of the fourteenth- century castles, such as Alloa, Drum, Dundonald, Threave, or Torthor- wald, where the walls are about 10 feet in thickness, or twice as thick as those of Kellie. Even in the fifteenth century 10 feet is not an uncommon thickness for walls. " The portion of the western facade immediately to the south of the old keep, and joining it to the southern tower, looks as old as the keep itself, and must have formed part of some building which existed pre- vious to 1573, the period at which, as we shall see, the castle assumed its present dimensions."