stirling-1963-vol-1/05_235

Transcription

No. 192 -- CASTLES AND TOWER-HOUSES -- No. 192

[Plan Inserted]
Fig. 74. Stirling Castle (No. 192); first-floor plan of the Palace

one has survived unaltered from the 16th century, while
the other two have had their heads raised. On the S. side
of the courtyard all the openings on the ground floor
have been rebuilt; the archway, however, through which
the courtyard is entered seems to be old, if perhaps some-
what altered, although it is not shown on the plan of
1719. ¹ On the first floor there are five large original
windows. On the top floor there are seven windows, all
of which seem to date from the turn of the 17th and 18th
centuries although many of them have since been en-
larged and heightened. On the N. side of the courtyard,
at ground level, there is a single window the exterior of
which has been refaced. On the first floor there are four
large original windows, with the relieving-arch of a great
fireplace appearing through the thickness of the wall.
On the top floor there are slight traces of six original
windows; these were replaced at the turn of the 17th
and 18th centuries by larger windows, which were them-
selves heightened when the wall-head came to be raised.

Interior. A glance at the plan of the basement floor
(Fig. 73) reveals some abnormal alinements of walls
only to be explained on the ground that James V's Palace
incorporates an earlier structure, the most considerable
surviving portion of which is a range of cellars on the
ground floor of the present E. quarter. The Palace is
planned around its first or principal floor (Fig. 74),
which is devoted to the State Apartments of James V,
and the plan is probably based upon the arrangement of
the rather earlier palace at Linlithgow, ² in which the

1 National Library of Scotland MS. 1645, Z 2/18.
2 Inventory of Midlothian and West Lothian, fig. 276.

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