Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/244

 FOURTH PERIOD 228 CASTLE FRASER North of Scotland Railway. It is the largest and most elaborate of the Scottish castles built on the plan of a central oblong block, with towers at two of the diagonally opposite angles. This arrangement is distinctly seen in the sketch, the north-west tower being square, and the south- east tower round (Fig. 682). We were afraid that we should not have it in our power to exhibit plans of this castle, having been unable to obtain permission to make them. But, fortunately, Mr. Skene prepared plans of Castle Fraser in the early part of this century, which we are now permitted to make available (Fig. 683). The arrangements are apparently very much those that hold generally. The main body of the building contains the hall and principal apart- ments, and the wings contain smaller rooms entering off them. The ground floor probably comprised the kitchen and cellars, and has two private stairs to the hall level besides the principal staircase. The pre- sent entrance is in the centre of the south front, but the original entrance was in the re-entering angle of the north-west tower, where the principal staircase is. The latter ascends to the first floor only, above which a smaller staircase corbelled out in the re-entering angle leads to the upper floors. These contain bedrooms with separate entrances provided by the different staircases. The entrance front is approached from the north through a fine double row of trees, evidently planted for an avenue, but not now used as an approach. The low buildings now forming a courtyard to the north (see sketch), are of more recent date than the original castle. According to the date on the Royal arms in the centre of the north front, the latter was built in 1576, while the wings were added in 1617. All the details of the exterior are admirably illustrated by Mr. Billings, but he does not appear to have recognised the importance of the plan, as a guide to the date of the building, when he says, " Of that mass [the central block] the upper will be seen to be of very different character from the lower architectural department, which probably was the unadorned square tower of the fifteenth century." We have had fre- quent occasion to draw attention to the fact that the Scottish architects of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost always made their designs on this principle, i.e. they kept the lower part of their buildings quite plain, and reserved any decoration for the parapet and upper parts of the edifice. That is the system adopted here. The lower part of the walls is entirely without ornament, but the corbel table of the parapet, the dormers, and angle turrets show the usual profusion of decoration of this period. The plan of the building likewise precludes the supposition that it is of earlier date than the middle of the sixteenth century, when the form here adopted, with two diagonally opposite towers, began to be intro- duced. Without this key to the date it would be perhaps quite natural