Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/156

 FOURTH PERIOD 140 MAR CASTLE The plan of the castle (Fig. 597) shows the characteristic features of the period. It is built on the L plan, with round tower in the re-entering angle containing a good newel staircase. The ground floor has probably been little altered. It contains the kitchen (the large fireplace of which has been diminished in size) and a cellar adjoining. The other cellar in the wing has been divided at a later period to form an ammuni- FIG. 597. Mar Castle. Plans. tion magazine. Under the entrance passage, as shown by dotted lines on the plan, is a small vaulted dungeon (12 feet by 6 feet 6 inches) entered from a hatch in the floor. The castle was burnt by the natives, who expelled the garrison, and it remained in this state till 1715, when the Mar estates were forfeited. In 1748 the Government leased the castle from Farquharson of Inver- cauld, to whom it then belonged, for ninety-nine years, with fourteen acres of land around it, for l4> of yearly rent. "The castle was then repaired or rebuilt, and a rampart built round it, and for some years afterwards it was occupied by troops." 1 1 Smith's New History of Aberdeenshire, p. 397.