At the north end of the island of Westray stands Noltland Castle, the only ancient military structure which Orkney can now show in a state of comparative preservation. The castle is clearly of two periods, but the best authorities now reject the once prevalent idea that the earlier portion could have been erected by Thomas de Tulloch, Bishop of Orkney from 1418 to 1460. The building is supposed to have been added to and beautified by a later Bishop, Edward Stewart, yet so late as 1529 Jo Ben described it as “Arx excellentissima sed nondum completa.” Adam Bothwell, the first protestant Bishop, feued the castle to Sir Gilbert Balfour, Master of the Household to Queen Mary, and a doubtful tradition says that Balfour had orders to prepare the place as a retreat for the Queen and Bothwell. Finally the place gave refuge to some officers flying from Montrose’s defeat at Carbisdale, and was on that account fired and left dismantled by Cromwell’s soldiers. The great staircase of Noltland is one of the finest in Scotland, excelled only by those of Fyvie and Glamis Castles. Another special feature of the castle is the exceptional number of shot-holes, splayed both outwards and inwards, which give its exterior walls the appearance of the hull of an old style man-of-war. The Earl’s Palace at Kirkwall, built by Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, about 1600, is one of the most beautiful specimens of domestic architecture in Scotland, and more regal in appearance than anything north of Stirling and Linlithgow. Fronting west, the building forms three sides of a square, and is practically entire save for the roof. On the ground floor is the grand hall, a magnificent apartment about 55 feet long by 20 feet wide, lighted by three splendid oriels, and a triple window in the gable, divided and subdivided by mullions and transoms. There are two fireplaces in the room, one being 18 feet wide. At the landing of the main stair there is a beautifully arched apartment of about 9 feet long by 7½ feet wide, commonly styled the chapel, but which may have been a waiting room. “It is a superb specimen of Scottish seventeenth-century architecture, its oriel windows and turrets being unsurpassed by anything on the mainland, and it is so rich in its details, and spacious in its accommodation, that it is with more than usual regret that one looks on its roofless and decaying walls.” The palace has not been inhabited since towards the close of the seventeenth century. [Illustration: The Earl’s Palace at Kirkwall (c. 1600 A.D.)]