dumfries-1920/04-067

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN DUMFRIESSHIRE.

Barjarg (No. 327) the tower containing the stair and basement entrance had been at
the re-entering angle formed by the junction of the tower with its original wing. In
Frenchland Tower (No. 480), where there was a good deal of reconstruction, we have
the common arrangement of a stair to the first floor provided in the new wing, the
upper part of which, however, was laid out in rooms, while the old wheel-staircase still
served all above the first-floor level.
One sign of a late period of construction is the presence of ornament based on
military features; Hollows thus displaying its late 16th-century character in the
ornamental corbelling and cable ornament of its parapet, which projects so slightly

[Map inserted]

FIG. 6. - Map showing the situation of Castles and Fortified Houses "in the Debateable Land," 1590.
From map in British Museum (Bib. Reg., 18 D iii.).

as to be of little military effectiveness. In Isle Tower (No. 337), too, as in Elshie-
shields, we see the total disappearance of the defensive wall-head, the sides passing
immediately into the gabled crow-stepped roof. At Spedlin's, however, where the
same construction appears, the upper floors have been imposed on an older as
much more massive portion. Ornamental detail is most conspicuous in the case
of Amisfield, where Renaissance pilasters on the dormer outface Gothic dog-tooth
ornament on other windows and string courses of both early and late design. In
the articles on Amisfield and Elshieshields reasons are given for the belief that both
places are due to the same designer.
A feature of these defensible Border houses was the iron "yett" or gate , of which
a few examples survive (see fig. 133 and Index), and which was placed just within
the wooden door (cf. p. lxv.). That these iron gates were both formidable and

-- lxiii