dumfries-1920/04-066

Transcription

HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION.

of timber known as a peel. ¹ In days when the palisade no longer existed, the
word survived, and the peel tower continued to be known as the peel, a descriptive
name loosely extended to all such towers whether originally they possessed a peel
proper or not.
Internally the tower contained at least two floors above the basement, and in
most cases more than two. The first floor was the hall or main living-room of
the tower. The only feature common to every important example, with one
exception, is that the basement should be vaulted in stone. But Elshieshields
(No. 447), which is among the latest, has its basement roofed with oak-beams. This
basement was always a storeroom, and it might be a stable. The upper part of
the vault was usually floored at the springing of the arch to gave further accommoda-
tion. In the logic of the building there should be no direct access from the basement

[Diagram inserted]

FIG.5. - Castlemilk from the "Plat of Milk Castle," c. 1547
(Hatfield). From tracing in Armstrong MSS.

to the upper floors, save perhaps by a
hatch, but this cannot be predicated of the
Dumfriesshire examples. Nor are there
many cases of the corresponding feature
that the main entrance of the tower should
be on the first floor. This is true of
Lochwood, Sanquhar and Closeburn, was
probably true of Spedlin's, and possibly of
many others in their earlier forms. The an-
nexed illustration shows this characteristic
in the case of the old tower of Castlemilk
(fig. 5), with the usual mode of approach
- a wooden ladder. The upper rooms were
floored with wood, and numbered two or
more, probably according to the age of the
tower. Thus Torthorwald has two vaulted
storeys, which was also originally the con-
dition of Closeburn and Spedlin's. The later
demand for greater comfort increased the accommodation in the provision of upper
rooms and by adding to the height of the building, as also by the projection of turrets
at the angles, till in the late structure of Amisfield we find the upper part of the square
block opening out in such excrescences like a flower. We find, further, the circular
stair or vice, which had generally been tucked into a corner of the building, as at
Closeburn, Lochhouse (No. 388), Robgill (No. 107), Lag (No. 136), etc., and even in
the much later towers of Hollows (No. 43), Stapleton (No. 106), etc., and so, as in
the latter examples, had frequently encroached upon the internal space, removed,
as at Amisfield, to a corner turret rising from the first-floor level, or, as in
Elshieshields and Blacket House (No. 460), wholly confined to a separate wing. At

1 Peel or pele is for Old French pel, from the Latin accusative palum, a stake. In 1544 we have a note
of the burning, among other things, of "peel houses, corn and steads in Hodholme ... and all the peels
in Myddleby and Middleby Woods" (Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., Foreign and Domestic, vol. xix.
part ii. p. 373). An Act of 1535 ordered every man dwelling in the inland or border having land to the
annual value of £100 to build in a convenient place a "barmekyn" of stone and lime 60 feet square,
with walls an ell thick and 6 ells (Scots ell = 34 1/2 English inches) high, as a refuge to himself and his
tenants in troublous times, with a tower in the same for himself, if thought expedient. Those having
a smaller rental were to construct peels or great strengths, as they pleased, for saving themselves,
tenants, and goods.

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