Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445: Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 — John Shaqi
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445: Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445: Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852
Various
Periodicals
Taking the former--the baronial--for our text, we find ourselves now
for the first time in a condition to discover the leading features of
the Scottish school of architecture, and to connect it with the
history of Scotland. We know that until the wars of Wallace and Bruce,
the two countries, England and Scotland, could scarcely be said to be
entirely separated; at all events, they did not stand in open
hostility to each other. Endless animosities, however, naturally
followed a war in which the one country tried to enslave the other,
and where the weaker only escaped annihilation by a desperate
struggle. It is not unnatural, therefore, to expect that the habits of
the two countries diverged from each other as time passed on; and this
process is very distinctly shewn in the character of the edifices used
by the barons and lairds of Scotland. A very few of the oldest
strongholds resemble those of the same period in England. The English
baronial castle of the thirteenth century generally consisted of
several massive square or round towers, broad at the base, and
tapering upwards, arranged at distances from each other, so that lofty
embattled walls or curtains stood between them, making a ground-plan
of which the towers formed the angles. The doors and windows were
generally in the Gothic or pointed style of architecture, and the
vaulted chambers were frequently of the same. There are not above
three or four such edifices in Scotland. The most complete, perhaps,
is the old part of Caerlaverock, in Dumfriesshire; another fine
specimen is Dirleton, in East Lothian; and to these may be added
Bothwell, in Clydesdale, and Kildrummie, in Aberdeenshire.
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