dumfries-1920/04-091

Transcription

CAERLAVEROCK.] INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. [CAERLAVEROCK.

least contemporaneous with the towers, and
bears indications of openings filled in at some
later period. The upper part, five feet higher,
is inferior work of rubble, similar to that
employed in the east wall of the late 15th-
century range of buildings built against and
incorporating this curtain. The curtain was
originally finished with a parapet walk borne
on corbels, as the third floor of the west basal
tower can only be entered from a doorway
set on the line of the curtain with a sill 30
feet above the moat. There is a projecting
flue, borne on corbels 6 feet north of the west
tower, which conducted sewage to the moat
from a garderobe on the parapet.
The south-west angle of the gatehouse is pro-
tected, as on the south-east, by an extension
of the lateral wall southward, surmounted by
corbelling similar to that on the north and
east. A drain from the garderobes situated
on the upper floors of the gatehouse is corbelled
out over the angle at the junction of the west
flanking tower and the main building.
The west flanking tower is slightly greater
in diameter than that on the east. The
batter at base is almost imperceptible and
1 foot 7 inches lower.
INTERIOR. - The ward is entered by a stone-
roofed pend or trance which passes under the
gatehouse, giving access en route, through a
doorway on either side, to guardrooms com-
municating with the basement of the flanking
towers (fig. 19). The pend was originally
defended at the outer end by a portcullis and
door, and terminated in an archway in the
south wall of the gatehouse. When the out-
most portcullis room was inserted (cf. p. 13),
c. 1450, additional defences, consisting of - in
order from the north - an iron gate, a port-
cullis, an inner door, and a second portcullis,
were provided in front of the original entrance.
At a later period, c. 1500, the archway at
the inner end of the trance was contracted and
a rear room or gallery with portcullis erected
over it at the level of the parapet. In this way
the gatehouse could be isolated - there being
no internal communication between the base-
ment and upper floors - in the event of a besieg-
ing party gaining the ward through the postern
or a breach in the curtain.
The guardrooms are irregularly shaped and
are lit by slits in the south wall of the gate-
house. The east chamber has an additional

and larger window in the east wall. Both are
provided with fireplaces in the lateral walls.
These chambers on the basement floor have
stone vaulted ceilings; in the tower rooms the
vaults have fallen in, but were apparently
shaped like a bee-hive and groined, where
necessary, at the doors and windows.
The first, and the three upper floors (fig. 20)
of the main body of the gatehouse contained
originally one large apartment on each floor,
but were divided in the 16th century by
a partition wall in which additional fireplaces
were inserted. On the first floor an archway in
the north wall, now built up, gave access to a
recess over the earlier entrance, within which
the mechanism for working the original port-
cullis was placed. In the north wall of this
recess is a narrow loophole or chase some
4 inches wide and 9 feet long, widening to a
spade-like shape at the sharply-splayed base,
through which quicklime or other offensive
material could be poured on intruders, should
they attack the portcullis.
In the south-west angle of the gatehouse a
small wheel-stair - originally the only access -
communicates with the upper floors and the
parapet walk. There is a shelved recess in
the west wall for the purpose of containing
two wooden lockers or cupboards, and a
smaller one in the north wall. The windows
and doors of the south wall of the gatehouse
have been altered or inserted, as the details of
their jambs show, when the gallery and its
piers were built.
it is not clear how access from the basement
to the first floor was obtained before the later
wheel-stairs outwith the gatehouse were built.
In all probability there was a moveable wooden
stair or ladder to the west against the south
wall.In this wall, near the angle formed by
it and the west wall, is a semicircular relieving
arch, subsequently filled in, which suggests
that such a stair may have led to an entrance
within this arch. In each of the towers, at
this level, is a chamber with windows anterior
in date to the forebuilding, as the openings
commanding the entrance are obscured by the
later work. The east chamber has a fireplace
and garderobe on the east side and the west
chamber a garderobe in the thickness of the
wall at the south-west angle.
The second floor and the storeys above in
the main building of the gatehouse had

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