Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/233

 NOTLAND CASTLE 21? FOURTH PERIOD have been protected by shutters, otherwise the kitchen and rooms above could not have been habitable. In one of the storerooms in the base- ment was the well, all traces of which are now obliterated with rubbish. The hall, entering off the great staircase, is 42 feet long by 23 feet wide, with side fireplace and windows, and small service-room at the top of the stair to the kitchen. Two hatchways in the centre of the floors open to the entresol in the vault of the basement. The dotted lines shown running along the plan of the hall represent a wall built with stone and clay, and now quite ruinous, erected in later times to form a passage from the service-room to the private rooms. Entering from the far end of the hall is the private room, and beyond this a bedroom in the north-east tower, both having fireplaces and garde-robes. In the re-entering angle of this tower a newel stair- case led to what were evidently the family rooms above, four in number, and also to the battlements. This eastern or family portion of the castle is cut off from the western part by the thick partition wall seen crossing on the first and second floor plans. This partition, about 4 feet thick, rests on the vault under the hall, but has, as will be seen in the north-west view (Fig. 673), a relieving arch above to carry some of its great weight from the vault to the side walls^ which are about 7 feet thick. The western portion of the castle above the hall floor is now quite ruinous (Fig. 675), and is supposed by some writers never to have been finished. However this may be, a circular stair at the head of the great staircase leads up to the vaulted roof of the latter, above which the walls do not go. This well stair, along with a straight flight over the service stair, was evidently meant to serve this end of the castle. Ben, a writer of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, noticing Notland, says, " In Westray there is an excellent castle, but not yet com- pleted." This gives a certain foundation for the common belief, which an inspection of the building rather confirms, that the walls of the western portion never were higher than now, and it may have been that they were roofed in at their present level, having attic rooms in the roof, for which the stairs already referred to would be serviceable. The great staircase (Figs. 676 and .677) is one of the finest in Scot- land, and it is probably only excelled by those of Fyvie or Glamis. It consists of winding steps averaging 7 feet long and 6*37 inches high, and each step is formed of a single stone. The newel of red sandstone is 3 feet Ij inch in diameter. This newel is crowned on the top by a great cap, which measures 2 feet 10 inches high over the neck moulding, and is built in three courses, the lower one being moulded, and the two upper sloping courses covered with ornament. That of the under course consists of flutings, containing flat beads, a round hollow with flat ball, one or two compartments with sinkings diverging from a central line like an ear of barley, or the head of a stalk of rye-grass. The upper tier,