Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/451

 CULROSS 435 FOURTH PERIOD court, and forms a sort of hanging garden with several terraces command- ing a fine view of the Firth of Forth and the country beyond. The turnpike stair at the back is so continued as to give access to the hall, the owner's room, and the back bed- room, while it also communicates directly with the kitchen, the wine-cellar, and the back court on the ground floor. This stair also leads to an upper floor over the northern part of the building. One of the apart- ments, lighted with three dormer windows, has been elaborately painted on the wooden lining of the ceiling with emblematic subjects, each with an appropriate text in black letter, while the walls of the upper chambers have been decorated with geometric patterns in various colours. Fig. 873 shows two of these patterns. This kind of de- coration was not uncommon at the time both in form and colour. Of the coloured decoration there are good examples at Pinkie House and Earlshall, Collairnie, and Stobhall Chapel, while the geometric forms are almost of universal appli- cation in the ceilings of the apartments of the " Fourth Period " of our Scottish Architecture. The building on the north side of the courtyard contains the stables and offices on the ground floor, with a straight stair to the first floor, where also there is a door to the garden, and a circular stair from that level to the top story. There are two good apartments on each of the upper floors, and the top story has ornamental dormers, containing the initials of George Bruce and the date 1611. These rooms have also been elaborately decorated and coloured on walls and ceiling. This part of the building, being of somewhat later date than the main mansion, is probably an addition raised over the stables in order to provide enlarged accommo- dation. Some of the windows still preserve the carved cross bar in the centre of the windows which formed the separation between the glazed upper part and the lower portion, which was provided with wooden shutters only. This building has remained almost quite unaltered till the present day. It now stands imtenanted, and is rapidly going to decay. The roofs are fast falling in, and the old painting will soon be a thing of the past. It is melancholy to see such an interesting structure thus left to its fate when a few pounds judiciously applied in time might save this valuable monument for many years. FIG. 873.