stirling-1963-vol-1/05_245

Transcription

No. 192 -- CASTLES AND TOWER-HOUSES -- No. 192
upper part of the gable two 18th-century windows
replace an earlier window, now built up; the chimney is
an addition, and a plain table-course has been substituted
for the original crow-stepped gables. At the angles, where
the rounds have been removed, the profile of the mould-
ings of the two lower courses of the rounds may be seen
in the masonry immediately below the corbel course.
Some of the masonry of the gable is pitted as if by cannon
or musketry fire.

The Transe and Gallery, The remaining external
features are the W. and N. transes and the N. gallery.
It seems fairly clear that some sort of gallery was
always intended to run along the W. wall of the Hall.
This is shown by the absence of a plinth such as is found
on the other walls of the building, by the remains of the
drip course of the gallery roof, still visible beneath the
sills of the principal windows, and by the corbels for the
runners of the roof, some of which still remain. At the
same time it is plain that the present vaulted transe on
the W. side and the transe and gallery on the N. side of
the Hall are not original features, evidence being found
in the clumsy way in which the vault of the transe buts
on to the main walls of the Hall; also by the facts that
the W. transe blinds an original ground-floor window in
the W. wall and that the N. transe overrides the plinth
that may be seen returning along the N. gable. It must
therefore be supposed that the present W. transe and
gallery replace an earlier project of a similar sort (cf.
Fig. 80). The chief purpose of the earlier gallery was
no doubt to provide a covered approach to the main
entrance-doorway at the N. end of the Hall, and it must
therefore have incorporated a staircase; at its S. end the
gallery may have been intended to give cover for the
unloading of stores at the two doorways that give access
to the cellars beneath the Hall. Whether or not a gallery
of this sort was ever erected is uncertain, as fairly soon
after the completion of the Hall it was decided to level
up the steep slope of the Upper Square by raising its E.
side to the level of the first floor of the Hall. This led to
the erection of the present vaulted transe which acted as
a retaining wall to the raised Upper Square and at the
same time allowed access to the ground floor of the Hall.
Above the transe a covered walk or gallery was erected,
its roof at the intended level of the earlier gallery, and both
transe and gallery were extended to run along the N.
gable as well. The exact date of these alterations is
uncertain; they certainly took place before the erection of
the Chapel Royal in 1594 (infra) and may well have
been carried out fairly early in the 16th century. The W.
gallery was removed during the 18th century, but its
general appearance is preserved by a plan and section
drawn in 1719, ¹ and some traces of it can be seen in the
late 18th-century view ² reproduced on Pl. 88 A.
In its present form the W. transe is a long, dark
vaulted tunnel entered from a 17th-century doorway at
its S. end, which no doubt replaces an older doorway in
the same position. The N. end of the transe is screened
off by a modern brick partition; towards the S. end two
original doorways, now built up, may be seen in the W.
wall of the Hall. North of the brick partition there is an
original window in the W. wall of the Hall, and still
further N. an inserted doorway. In the angle formed by
the junction of the N. and W. transes an original window,
which faced N., has been converted into a doorway; to
the W. there is a doorway with chamfered arrises, now
blocked up. This door was partially opened up in October
1957 and was found to have originally given access to an
apartment situated below the E. end of the Chapel Royal.
When the Chapel Royal was built in 1594 this apartment
was filled up with debris and sealed off. Opposite this
doorway may be seen the outline of the vault that con-
tinues the transe along the N. gable of the Hall, but the
N. transe is now sealed off by a partition and is accessible
only from its E. end.
The windows that light the N. transe are modern while
the gallery was partially rebuilt in the late 18th century,
its four easternmost windows being of this period. The
wall-head of the E. portion of the gallery was lowered by
about 4 ft. 6 in. at the same time. The W. end of the
transe and gallery adjoins the E. gable of the Chapel
Royal, but the masonry has been much disturbed at this
point and the building sequence is uncertain; it seems,
however, that the Chapel of 1594 has intruded upon the
W. end of the transe and gallery, which has been some-
what altered in the process. At a slightly later date an
anteroom was formed at the E. end of the Chapel within
the angle formed by the junction of the N. and W.
galleries. As it stands today this W. portion of the gallery
has a penthouse roof with a crow-stepped gable. The
roll-moulded window looking N. dates from the con-
version of this part of the gallery into the anteroom to the
Chapel Royal. The N. transe, which is entered at its E.
end by a doorway broken through the N. gable of the
Hall, contains no features of interest. The N. gallery is
entered at its W. end from the anteroom of the Chapel
Royal; the doorway replaces an older one which adjoined
the NW. corner of the Hall and part of the relieving arch
of the older door may be seen in the external re-entrant
angle between the Hall and the anteroom.

Interior. The undercroft of the Hall (Fig. 77)
originally contained a series of vaulted cellars, most of
which were intercommunicating. This arrangement was
modified, in the late 18th century, by the insertion of
partition walls to support the staircases that were
installed when the Hall was converted into barracks;
further alterations, some of them involving the opening-
out of new doorways, have been made since. These
modifications are all shown on the plan, and the follow-
ing description for the most part takes account of the
original arrangements only. A doorway in the centre of
the N. gable led into a corridor which gave access to a
large cellar at its S. end and to two smaller cellars on the
W. and E. respectively; these latter communicated with
the Hall above by means of turnpike stairs in the NW.
and NE. angles of the building. The large cellar gave

1 National Library of Scotland MS. 1645, Z 2/18.
2 Bodleian Library, Gough Maps, 40, (17537), fol. 5r.

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