Dalhousie Castle (2)
When I first saw this MacGibbon & Ross floor-plan (after I had visited the castle), I thought I was looking at the wrong place! It shows an L-plan tower-house within a roughly rectangular courtyard wall, on the north-west corner of which is a large round tower. I thought to myself, 'Self, there's no courtyard wall round Dalhousie!' Then I remembered seeing the two vertical slots above and to either side of the doorway, which are unmistakably for the counter-balance beams of a drawbridge and I remembered thinking that they were in an unusual (although not completely unique) place - leading directly into the building.
The answer is that Dalhousie Castle was indeed as M&R drew it (although somewhat before their time), since when, as part of the process of turning a cramped mediaeval castle into a spacious residence suitable for a nobleman, the entire space between the tower-house and curtain wall has been filled in.
Dalhousie Castle (2)
When I first saw this MacGibbon & Ross floor-plan (after I had visited the castle), I thought I was looking at the wrong place! It shows an L-plan tower-house within a roughly rectangular courtyard wall, on the north-west corner of which is a large round tower. I thought to myself, 'Self, there's no courtyard wall round Dalhousie!' Then I remembered seeing the two vertical slots above and to either side of the doorway, which are unmistakably for the counter-balance beams of a drawbridge and I remembered thinking that they were in an unusual (although not completely unique) place - leading directly into the building.
The answer is that Dalhousie Castle was indeed as M&R drew it (although somewhat before their time), since when, as part of the process of turning a cramped mediaeval castle into a spacious residence suitable for a nobleman, the entire space between the tower-house and curtain wall has been filled in.