Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/455

 DRUM CASTLE _ 439 FOURTH PERIOD staircase attached to the south-east tower only connects the basement with the principal floor. The first floor contains the hall (38 feet by 20 feet), entering directly from the principal staircase ; beyond it, and entering through it, was the withdrawing-room (31 feet by 20 feet), both with large windows to the south. These windows appear at a subsequent time to have been further enlarged, and one of them converted into a door with steps down to the garden. There is a small private room off the hall in the south-west tower. From the hall a newel stair over the entrance, and another adjoining the south-west tower, lead to the rooms on the upper floor. The owner's private rooms are to the east of the drawing-room. These, as well as the drawing-room, may be approached from the servants' stair, but there is also a private stair connected with the south- east tower leading to a small room in the basement of the tower from which there is a private door to the outside. The laird could thus come and go privately, or receive visitors and send them forth unobserved. A similar arrangement occurs at Caroline Park. The room in the turret on the ground floor was a " speak-a-word " room for workmen and others, while that on the first floor was the proprietor's own private room. The apartment marked " private room " on the plan occupies the position of the private room in the older plans, but here it rather represents a modern library. The second floor contains bedrooms, which were provided with separate accesses in the old way, viz., by several small staircases, and not by a corridor. The latter arrangement, it will be observed, has now been introduced by the modem additions. This seems to have been the point in the old system which was found to clash most with modern require- ments, and several attempts were made to overcome the difficulty. First a square staircase (shown by the hatched walls) was pushed out from the centre of the building, and a lobby was formed adjoining it and con- necting it with the entrance door in the south front by cutting off a part of the drawing-room. This gave a separate access from the basement and from the exterior to the public rooms on the principal floor, as well as to the upper floor, where a corridor or passage provided distinct entrances to all the bedrooms. But this was not found suffi- cient for the present day, hence the larger entrance hall and staircase and the wide corridors designed by Mr. Bryce which have now been added. The accommodation provided at Drum is very similar to that of the old L plans, but it is somewhat differently arranged. One object of this difference of arrangement of the plan has evidently been to produce a symmetrical elevation towards the south. This is further apparent from the elevation itself. Although the demand for absolute