19. Architecture—(_b_) Castellated.

The earliest fortifications in Scotland were earthen mounds, surrounded with wooden palisades. They were succeeded by stone and lime “keeps” built in imitation of Norman structures. The presence of the Normans in England during the eleventh and twelfth centuries drove the Saxon nobility northwards, and they were followed in turn by other Normans, who obtained possession of great tracts of country. The rectangular keeps of the Normans have in consequence formed the models on which most of the Scottish castles were constructed. In the thirteenth century there were castles at Strathbogie, Fyvie, Inverurie and Kildrummy. These have mostly been rebuilt in recent times and the more ancient parts have disappeared. The general idea in them all was a fortified enclosure usually quadrilateral. The walls of the enclosure were 7 to 9 feet thick and 20 to 30 feet high. The angles had round or square towers, and the walls had parapets and embrasures for defence and a continuous path round the top of the ramparts. The entrance was a wide gate guarded by a portcullis. The comparatively large area within the walls was intended to harbour the population of a district and to give temporary protection to their flocks and possessions in times of danger. Some of the finer examples, such as Kildrummy, closely resemble the splendid military buildings of France in the thirteenth century. One of the towers is usually larger than the others and forms the donjon or place of strength,to which retreat could be made as a last resort, when, during a siege, the enemy had gained a footing within the walls.

Kildrummy Castle

Kildrummy Castle is one of the finest and largest in Scotland, and even in its present ruinous condition gives an impression of grandeur and extent such as no othercastle in Aberdeenshire can rival. It was built in the reign of Alexander II by Gilbert de Moravia, Bishop of Caithness. Situated near the river Don, some ten miles inland from Alford, and occupying a strong position on the top of a bank which slopes steeply to a burn on two sides, and protected on the other sides by an artificial fosse, it was a place of great strength. Its plan is an irregular quadrangle, the south front bulging out in the centre towards the gateway. It had six round towers, one at each angle and two at the gate. One of the corner towers—the Snow Tower—55 feet in diameter, was the donjon and contained the draw-well. The castle possessed a large courtyard, a great hall, and a chapel, of which the window of three tall lancets survives. It was built in the thirteenth century, and therefore belongs to the First Pointed Period. The stone used is a sandstone, probably taken from the quarries in the locality, where instead of the prevailing granite of Aberdeenshire a great band of sandstone occurs.

This famous castle passed through various vicissitudes. It was besieged in 1306 by Edward I of England and was gallantly defended, but, in consequence of a great conflagration, Nigel Bruce, King Robert’s brother, who was acting as governor, yielded it to the English, he himself being made prisoner and ultimately executed. Some of the buildings date from this period, when it was rebuilt by the English, but it soon fell into Bruce’s hands again. Twenty years after Bannockburn it was conferred on the Earl of Mar. The rebellion of 1715 was hatched within its walls. Thereafter being forfeited by Mar, it eventuallycame into the hands of the Gordons of Wardhouse. Recently it was purchased by Colonel Ogston, who has built a modern mansion-house close by and crossed the ravine with a bridge, an exact replica of the historic Bridge of Balgownie near Donmouth.

During the fourteenth century, Scotland, exhausted with the struggle for national independence, was unable to engage in extensive building. Beside, Bruce’s policy was opposed to castle building, as such edifices were liable to be captured by the enemy and a secure footing thereby obtained. His policy was rather to strip the country, and to destroy everything in front of an invading army, with a view to starving it out. The houses of the peasantry were made of wood and could easily be restored when destroyed. The houses of the nobility took the form of square towers on the Norman model and all castles of the fourteenth century were on this simple plan—a square or oblong tower with very thick walls and defended from a parapeted path round the top of the tower. The angles were rounded or projected on corbels in the form of round bartizans. At first these parapets were open and machicolated. As time went on, the simple keep was extended by adding on a small wing at one corner, which gave the ground plan of the whole building the shape of the letter =L=. The entrance was then placed as a rule at the re-entering angle. Such keeps are usually spoken of as built on the =L= plan. The ground floor was vaulted and used for stores or stables and as accommodation for servants. The only communication between this and the first floor was a hatch. In early castles the principal entrance wasoften on the floor above the ground floor and was reached by a stair easily removed in time of danger. Access from one storey to another was by a corkscrew or newel stair at one corner in the thick wall. Thus constructed a tower could resist siege and fire, and even if taken, could not be easily damaged.

Of this kind of keep Aberdeenshire has many excellent examples, the most perfect, perhaps, being the Tower of Drum. It stands on a ridge overlooking the valley of the Dee. To the ancient keep built probably late in the thirteenth century was added a mansion-house on a different plan in 1619. The estate was granted to William de Irvine by Bruce in recognition of faithful service as secretary and armour-bearer. Previous to that, Drum was a royal forest and a hunting-seat of the king. The keep, which stands as solid and square to-day as it did six hundred years ago, is quadrilateral and the angles are rounded off. The entrance was at the level of the first floor. The main stair is a newel. In the lowest storey the walls are twelve feet thick, pierced with two narrow loops for light. In a recess is the well. On the top of the tower are battlements, the parapet resting on a corbel-table continued right round the building.

Hallforest near Kintore is an example of a fourteenth century keep. It was built by Bruce as a hunting-seat and bestowed on Sir Robert de Keith, the Marischal. It still belongs to the Kintore family but is now a ruin.

The fifteenth century brought a change in castle-building. The accommodation of the keeps was circumscribed and the paucity of rooms made privacy impossible.One way of extending the space was, as we have said, by adding a wing at one corner. Another mode was to utilise the surrounding wall, for the keeps were generally guarded by a wall, which formed a courtyard or barmekin for stabling and offices. This was often of considerable extent and defended by towers. As the country progressed and manners improved, buildings were extended round the inside of the courtyard walls. In the sixteenth century the change went further and developed into the mansion-house built round a quadrangle. The building was first in the centre of the surrounding wall; ultimately the courtyard was absorbed and became the centre of the castle.

Balquhain Castle in Chapel of Garioch, two miles from Inverurie, was originally a keep like Drum, but being destroyed in 1526, it was rebuilt. Very little of it now remains but its massive, weather-stained walls have a commanding effect. The barmekin is still traceable. Queen Mary is said to have passed the night prior to the Battle of Corrichie at Balquhain. It was burned in 1746 by the Duke of Cumberland.

Many other castles on the same general plan are dotted up and down the county. Some are in ruins, some have been altered and added to on other lines, but the original keep is still a marked feature in most of them. Cairnbulg—recently restored—on the north-east coast has a keep of the fifteenth century with additions of a century later. Gight, now ruinous, but formerly celebrated for its great strength, occupies a fine site on the summit of the Braes of Gight, which rise abruptly fromthe bed of the Ythan. It also is a fifteenth century edifice built on the =L= plan. It has a historical interest as having once belonged to Lord Byron’s mother, from whom it was purchased by the Earl of Aberdeen. Another of the same kind is Craig Castle in Auchindoir. It was completed in 1518 and is also on the =L= plan. So too is Fedderat in New Deer.

The Old House of Gight

In the sixteenth century the troubled reign of Queen Mary was unfavourable to architecture, but towards the end of it the rise of Renaissance art began to exert a decided influence, especially on details and internal furnishings, and in the next century gradually but completely dominated the spirit of the art. Another influence at work was the progress made in artillery. The ordinary castlescould not now resist artillery fire, and all attempts at making them impregnable fortresses were abandoned, and the only fortifications retained were such as would make the buildings safe from sudden attack. In consequence, what had before been grim fortresses were now transformed into country mansions, whether on the keep or on the quadrangle plan; and sites were chosen as providing shelter from the elements rather than defence against human foes. The Reformation, too, which secularised the church lands and gave the lion’s share to the nobility, was a notable influence in revolutionising architecture. The nobility being now more wealthy were enabled either to extend their old mansions or to build new ones. Hence the great development that took place in the quiet reign of James VI. The effect of the Union in 1603, which drew many of the nobility to England, was civilising and educative, and raised their ideas of house accommodation as well as their standard of comfort and domestic amenity.

The change was of course gradual. The old keeps and the castles built round a courtyard were still in evidence, but picturesque turrets corbelled out at every angle of the building, slated, and terminating in fanciful finials, became the rule. The lower walls were kept plain, the ornamentation being lavishly crowded only on the upper parts. The roofs became high-pitched with picturesque chimneys, dormer windows and crow-stepped gables. All these features so characteristic of the mansion-houses of the fourth period (1542-1700) are well marked in Craigievar, which is one of the best preserved castles of the time. Its ground plan is of the =L= type, but the turrets

Craigievar Castle, Donside

and gables are corbelled out with ornamental mouldings and the upper part of the castle displays that profusion of sky-pointing pinnacles and multifarious parapets which mark the period. The same is seen at Crathes and atCastle Fraser. The last is altogether an excellent specimen. It consists of a central oblong building with two towers at the diagonally opposite ends, one square and the other round, and is therefore a development into what has been called the =Z= plan or stepped plan—induced by the general use of firearms in defence. Here, as at Craigievar, gargoyles originally used to carry off rain water from the roof are brought in as a piece of fanciful decoration, apart from any utilitarian purpose, and project from the walls at places where rain-spouts are irrelevant.

Crathes Castle, Kincardineshire

The castle has a secret chamber or “lug,” in whichthe master of the house could over-hear the conversation of his guests in the dining-hall. Nothing could better illustrate the treachery and cunning which had been bred by the difficulty of the times. Mr Skene, the friend of Sir Walter Scott, minutely investigated this contrivance as it exists at Castle Fraser, and no doubt his account of this ingenious but dishonourable device for gaining illicit information suggested King James’s “Lug,” so happily described inThe Fortunes of Nigel.

Castle Fraser

Castellated buildings of this class are so numerous in Aberdeenshire that it is possible to name only a few.One of the finest is Fyvie Castle on the banks of the upper reaches of the Ythan in the very centre of the county. It is not like many others a ruin, but a mansion-house modernised in many respects, but still retaining all the picturesque features of the olden time. It occupies two sides of a quadrangle, with the principal front towards the south, one side being 147, the other 137 feet in frontage. At the three corners are massive square towers, with angle turrets and crow-stepped gables. Besides these towers, there are in the centre of the south front two other projecting towers, which at 42 feet from the ground are bridged by a connecting arch, eleven feet wide, the whole forming a grand and most impressive mass of masonry called the “Seton” tower, a magnificent centre to what is perhaps the most imposing front of any domestic edifice in Scotland. At the south-east corner is the “Preston” tower, built by Sir Henry Preston, and the earliest part of the building, dating from the fourteenth century. In the south-west stands the “Meldrum” tower, so-called from the succeeding proprietors (1440-1596). They erected this part and the whole range of the south front except the “Seton” tower already referred to, which is a later addition. The Setons succeeded the Meldrums and it is to Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie and Earl of Dunfermline, that the castle owes its greatest splendours. Besides planning this tower, he ornamented the others with their turreted and ornate details. He also built the great staircase, which is a triumph of architectural skill. It is a wheel or newel staircase of grand proportions, skilfully planned and as skilfully executed.

Fyvie Castle, South Front

The Gordon tower on the west was not added till the eighteenth century, by William, second son of the second Earl of Aberdeen. Its erection necessitated the destruction of the chapel. Here one may see how the Renaissance ideas were creeping in, especially the desire for balance and symmetry. Two of everything was beginning to be the rule. One wing must have another to balance with it; one tower another to make a pair.

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