stirling-1963-vol-1/05_080

Transcription

INTRODUCTION : THE MIDDLE AGES AND LATER
may well have been painted. At the same level a covered parapet-walk runs along two sides
of the tower. The reluctance with which designers abandoned the concept of the tower-house
is demonstrated by Stenhouse (No. 200), which was erected in 1622 and is the latest structure
in the county that may be placed in this class. The building is L-shaped, the plan being
fundamentally the same as that found in the older towers.
The accommodation afforded by towers such as these naturally proved inadequate in later
times, and additional buildings were erected. Thus the original tower at Airth, which dates
from the late 15th century, was extended in two stages to form two sides of a courtyard, and to
the south side of the tower at Plean there was added in the 16th century a courtyard with an
east range, which provided kitchens and cellarage on the ground floor and extra living-space
above. At Duntreath, too, additional buildings were grouped round a courtyard, which was
entered from the west by a gatehouse. Often a tower was simply extended laterally by the
erection of a wing, as for example at Castle Cary , Culcreuch and Bardowie, but sometimes, as
at Gargunnock (No. 215) and Callendar House (No. 311), the additions were so extensive as to
engulf the original tower and thus completely change the character of the house.

HOUSES OF THE 16TH to 19TH CENTURIES (BURGHS)
As no mediaeval houses have survived in any of the burghs, the record of the urban buildings
can go back no further than the 16th century at earliest, and much material of post-mediaeval
times has been destroyed in the course of the last hundred years or so. Nevertheless, Stirling
still contains some good representative examples of Scottish domestic architecture of the 16th
and 17th centuries. Mar's Work (No. 230), the despoiled remains of a former town-house of
the Earls of Mar, is a fragment of a once substantial mansion designed on a courtyard plan.
The most interesting portion of the fabric that survives today is the east façade, which
incorporates a central gatehouse comprising a vaulted pend with octagonal flanking-towers.
The structure was erected between 1570 and 1572 and the façade, although somewhat
cumbered by a curious assemblage of ornamental detail, is a well-balanced Renaissance design.
Argyll's Lodging (No. 227) is perhaps the finest remaining town-house of any Scottish burgh.
The building is grouped round three sides of a courtyard, the fourth side comprising a screen
wall which contains an entrance-gateway. This arrangement, although apparently a homo-
geneous one, is in fact the result of construction at successive periods extending from the late
16th century to 1674. Much of the detail, such as the strap-worked window-pediments of the
east range and the handsome carved fireplaces that adorn the interior, is in the Netherlandish
taste that was in vogue in Scotland in the middle of the 17th century. In the oldest part of the
building the main apartments are set over a vaulted basement, but in the later portion some
of the principal rooms are placed on the ground floor.
The courtyard plan was adopted only for the most substantial town-houses, the less
important dwellings being for the most part tall, narrow buildings of considerable depth but
with a restricted street-frontage. Of these, the most notable is the house in Broad Street
(No. 233) that was built by James Norrie, Town Clerk of Stirling, in 1671. The building was
entirely reconstructed in 1958, but the attractive street-façade has been perpetuated; it is of

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