Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/326

 FOURTH PERIOD 310 GIRNIGOE CASTLE FTG. 762. Girnigoe Castle. Entrance to Keep. vaulted, and the floors above have been of timber. The first floor contains the hall, 30 feet by 19 feet, and a room in the north wing. These are well-lighted apartments, the hall having above the doorway of the keep a pro- jecting oriel window, of which the corbelling and rybats remain, with the top part of the sloping roof, thus render- ing its restoration, as shown in the sketch (Fig. 762), a simple matter. In the floor of the adjoining room in the wing, a hatchway leads down to an arched apartment, about 6 or 7 feet high, over the kitchen vault. This may have been a strong room or a hiding-place, for either of which purposes it was very secure, as no one could ima- gine its existence from the outside, its only window being towards the sea, which here renders the castle inacces- sible. A doorway leads out from the wing room to the top of the inner wall of the low buildings running east- wards from the keep. Another door in the passage between the hall and the wing room opens out to the sea front some 60 or 70 feet above the sea. At the level of the sill of this door a row of bold corbels is seen (Fig. 763) pro- jecting along the whole length of the front. These have evidently been intended to carry the floor of a bretesche, or hoarding, some of the