Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/65

 BIRSE CASTLE 49 FOURTH PERIOD The whole building is divided into two compartments by a passage running across the centre of the second floor, from which rooms entered to the north and south. These compartments are indicated in the view (Fig. 514) by the two gables of the double roof which covered in the tower. There is a rather incongruous relic of the more ancient plan on this floor, in the garde-robe, which has been preserved in the thickness of the west wall (see Section). Above the second floor there is a third which has been similarly arranged, and above this an attic flat with small loops in the gables, but probably with windows in the roof. The two upper floors are now inaccessible. The third floor has corbelled turrets at the four angles, which, from their shape and the cable mouldings they bear, are evidently late. The cornice over the central windows of this floor quite corresponds in style with the date of 1605 borne by that on the east side. We have seen that such towers as Coxton, Hallbar, etc., are not uncommon in the seventeenth century, but such a large and massive keep as this would be somewhat exceptional at this date. We have no hesitation, for the reasons above given, in ascribing its two lower stories to an earlier period. We have however placed this amongst the simple keeps of the Fifth Period, as the general effect and details of the building connect it more closely with that period than with the previous century. The fireplace of the hall (Fig. 515) is evidently an insertion of the later time, showing as it does the Renaissance details then coming into vogue. The design of this fireplace has a very striking resemblance to that of Newark Castle, Port-Glasgow. BIRSE CASTLE, ABERDEENSHIRE. This fragmentary ruin (Fig. 51 6) is situated in the centre of what was once the forest of Birse, but is now a bare and desolate region near the source of the Feugh Water. The road to it lies over moors and mountains, a distance of about six miles due south from Aboyne. The castle and forest belonged to the Gordons of Cluiiie, by one of whom the tower was probably built about the end of the sixteenth century. It has been a plain keep in plan, with the addition of a round tower at one angle only. It is thus intermediate between the simple keep and the variety with diagonally opposite wings. In style it closely resembles Knock Castle, having the same fret- work in the corbels of the turrets, and the angle tower being corbelled out to the square, and probably finished off in a manner similar to the high turret at Knock. VOL. II. I>