Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/526

 FOURTH PERIOD 510 EAST COATES HOUSE (Fig. 936), which no doubt contained the entrance doorway and staircase to the first floor. Above this level the staircase is carried up in a corbelled angle turret, the corbels running down almost to the ground. A little above the principal corbels a few smaller ones are seen in the wall of the staircase turret, following the rise of the steps in an unusual but very picturesque manner. The principal rooms have been on the first floor, and were lighted by the large windows visible in the sketch, the top story contain- ing the bedrooms. FIG. 936. East Coates House. View from the South-West. The angle turrets of the south gable are very large for their position, and reduce the gable to a small slip of wall between them. This is a good example of the manner in which the gable came to be engulfed by the angle turrets. As often happens in late houses, the angle turrets are of sufficient size internally to be used as small dressing-rooms. The dormers are finished in the simple manner not uncommon in seventeenth-century work, i.e. the gablets are built with ashlar, the edges of which are cut so as to form the skews, without any moulding or separate coping on the slope, but with a small moulding at the "putt" or springing. They are also crowned with the pattern of finials, then almost universal, viz., the Rose, the Thistle, and the Fleur-de-lis ; and