Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/59

 UDNY CASTLE 43 FOURTH PERIOD resorts of whatever men of learning were to be found in Scotland in the seventeenth century, to such an extent that Nisbet tells us, in his book on Heraldry, that "his (Sir John Scott's) house became a kind of College." In these circumstances one would expect to find the kitchen rather a conspicuous appointment in the building ; but there is none, and we are forced to conclude that, as at Kinnaird, the kitchen was an outside separate structure. The tower has evidently been inhabited till a recent period. The two floors within the upper vault are each divided into two rooms, but the partitions are in all likelihood modern, as there is only one fireplace on each of these floors. There are only three fireplaces in the tower altogether. The one already referred to (Fig. 508) contains on the frieze the initials of Sir John Scott, with his arms, and the initials of his wife, Dame Anne Drummond, a daughter of the house of Hawthornden, with her arms. There is ornamentation above the frieze, which at the time our sketch was made was not easily seen. There is a kind of pediment containing something like a pillar and the two last letters of the date, with other carvings. At the top of the stair turret is a panel (Fig. 508), twice dated A.D. 1627, containing the Scott and Drummond arms impaled, with their initials and those of their son, John Scott. The tower is in good preservation (Fig. 510), and is well worthy of reverent care as the residence of the man who wrote a strange little book, with a strange title Scott of Scotstarvet' s Staggering State of Scots Statesmen characterised by Carlyle as " not a satire at all, but a Homily on Life's Nothingness enforced by examples ; gives in brief compass, not without a rude Laconic geniality, the cream of Scotch Biographic History in that age, and unconsciously a curious self-portrait of the writer withal." UDNY CASTLE, ABERDEENSHIRE. This tall and massive pile occupies the highest point of a rising ground in the level plain of eastern Aberdeenshire, about 2j miles from the Udny Station on the Fraserburgh Railway, and is a conspicuous object in the landscape for miles around. It is now incorporated into a modern mansion, but we are enabled to present the old plans and elevations (Figs. 511 and 512) through the kindness of Messrs. Wardrop and Anderson, Architects. This is one of those buildings which Mr. Billings supposes were of ancient structure as regards the plain lower parts, while he informs us that the upper story shows a skyline " filled by the airy turrets and fantastic tracery of France." The plan however does not support this view. Although the walls are of plain masonry with rounded angles, like the keep of Drum Castle, the interior arrange-