Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/221

 TERPERSIE - 205 - FOURTH PERIOD As the Z plan was introduced for the purpose of facilitating defence with fire-arms, so, when defence came to be little thought of, this plan was gradually abandoned, by far the larger number of examples being found in the latter half of the sixteenth century. TERPERSIE, ABERDEENSHIRE. Although diminutive in size, this is an interesting house, as being one of the simplest and most primitive examples of the Z plan the design founded on the old keep plan, with round towers added at two of the diagonally opposite angles of the main block. The central building is only 28 feet by 18 feet over the walls (Fig. 664), and the towers are FIG. 664 Terpersie. Plans. about 18 feet in diameter, including the walls. The towers have the shot-holes arranged so as to command each face of the house, and in the upper floors there are also numerous shot-holes looking out in all direc- tions, as shown in the sketches (Figs. 665 and 666). These shot-holes are intended for musketry only, and have not the deep externally splayed ingoings of the earlier forms of embrasures for guns, the splay being entirely in the inner ingoing, with only a small round hole visible on the outside. The original outer door was on the east side, entering directly into the vaulted cellar occupying the base- ment. Crossing this, the door to the south-west tower is reached, from the ingoing of which a straight stair in the thickness of the wall leads to the hall on the first floor. Three strong doors have thus to be passed from the entrance on the ground floor before the stair to the hall is reached. Perhaps the hall had also a direct external entrance on the first floor, by the doorway which now leads to it from the newer staircase. There is a high window to the hall formed over the top of the staircase from the