Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/37

 AMISFIELD TOWER 21 FOURTH PERIOD The first floor comprises the hall, 21 feet long by 15 feet wide, with large fireplace, almonries, etc., as usual. The recess adjoining the stair- case seems to have been partitioned off as a separate chamber. One small cupboard has a little window to the outside, and may have been a place for keeping victuals in. This hall was probably used as a kitchen and servants' hall. The second floor contains the more important upper hall or pro- prietor's living-room, having windows on all sides, some of them provided with stone seats in the ingoings. There are also a garde-robe and almonries in the thickness of the walls. This room is only 22 feet by 21 feet. Above the first floor the staircase is carried up in a circular turret, corbelled out from the square angle, about 7 feet from the ground. Over the corbelling there is a door by which access could be obtained to the tower without opening the strong doors and defences of the lower doorway. This door would probably also be connected with the enclosing wall of the courtyard. The way in which the outer circle of the stair turret is managed shows a little straining after effect (Fig. 489). The third floor was evidently the proprietor's family bedroom. There is access from it by a few steps to the angle turrets at three of the angles. The form of these is unusual, from their being composed of a corbelled projection, partly circular and partly square. Each turret is provided with shot-holes, so that the face of the walls is protected 011 all sides. Above this floor the stair turret is made square on plan, and is over- hung in a very extraordinary manner, the whole turret being very skilfully corbelled out from, and balanced on the plain square angle of the ground floor. Above the third floor there is an attic room of the same dimensions. A small corbelled turret in the angle of the main staircase contains a very narrow stair to the attic floor and to two rooms (one above the other) immediately over the main staircase. These rooms are 9 feet by 8 feet. Still higher than this, and overhung and balanced on the apex of the gable, are two stories, and a still smaller stair than the last leading to the tf cape-house " or watch-tower, about 6 feet by 5 feet, forming the highest point of the building. Altogether this building affords a fine and telling example of the love of corbelling so prevalent in the " Fourth Period " of Scottish archi- tecture. The windows are much more enriched than usual, and the enrichments all show the tendency, then so common, of reverting to the early types. Round the windows we find the dog-tooth ; the top of the tower shows the billet and cable, while the projecting dormer has the cable and the guilloch combined with the small shafts and corbels so common in Scottish architecture at that time. This is probably the most