File:The baronial and ecclesiastical antiquities of Scotland (1909) (14784191915).jpg

Identifier: baronialecclesia00bill (find matches)
Title: The baronial and ecclesiastical antiquities of Scotland
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Billings, R. W. (Robert William), 1813-1874 Wiston-Glyn, A. W
Subjects: Architecture Church architecture
Publisher: Edinburg T.N. Foulis
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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towers, and their low conically cappedroofs, stands precisely as it was built, and wants but the moat, with which itwas formerly surrounded, to bring before us an old house completely arrangedfor defence by small arms ; for cannon are out of the question, the circularports not being quite four inches in diameter, and the rooms within thetowers only nine feet across. Indeed, the object of these fortified houses wasnot defence against artillery, but protection from flying marauders and rivalclansmen, whose movements, for their own safety, generally required toomuch celerity to admit of their carrying anything beyond the ofFensivemeans which personal weapons supplied. Annexed is a plan of the original house. At a is the entrance door, and immediately behind it was a ponderousinterlaced or cross-barred iron gate, secured by a huge bolt which passedinto a space in the wall represented at b. The room within the mainbuilding has on the ground floor a semicircular stone vault, and the towers.
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DALSPKRSIE, Ar.i:RlJi:K,\SlilKK ANTIQUITIES OF SCOTLAND 123 which are internally octagonal, are stone-vaulted in the form ot a pointedarch. The loop windows c, on the basement floor, are but three inches inwidth, but above the openings are of more ample dimensions. Even the latterwere strongly barred with iron gratings, so that ingress or egress, otherwisethan by the one entrance-door, was out of the question. The particularfeature of this plan is, however, in the arrangement of the ports marked d;and these completely command the sides of the parallelogram, renderinghostile approach no very safe matter. From the passage to the south-western tower we enter the staircase e, built within the wall, and leading tothe first floor, above which the communication is by a small circular stair,partially supported on a series of corbels, which appear in the accompanyingview. In the plan its position is marked by the circle /.

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