east-lothian-1924/05-241

Transcription

YESTER.] -- HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION. -- [YESTER.

composed largely of a soft reddish sandstone
rock with a covering of loam, easily excavated.
East of the position, where the Hopes Water
takes a westward loop, a fragment of dressed
masonry 12 feet broad and 8 feet thick is seen
in mid stream, suggesting from its position
that it formed the central pier of a bridge.
To the south-west the smaller stream is crossed
by a bridge with masonry of considerable age
but by no means as old as the fragment on
the east, which might well be 15th century
work.
The level portion of the site measures about
200 feet from north to south and has a greatest
width of 120 feet from east to west (fig. 14).
It has been girt by great walls of enceinte 6 to
8 feet thick, against which internal structures
have been reared. These for the most part are
levelled to the ground save on the north and
east, where portions still stand to a height of
40 feet. In other directions the walls have
fallen, and their debris litters the flanks of
the enceinte and the interior, rendering the
arrangement difficult to elicit. At the southern
end, towards the western corner, the con-
formation of the debris would suggest that the
curtains were here strengthened by circular
towers ; but these and many other obscure
points can be ascertained only by extensive
excavations.
The most prominent portions of the curtain
still standing are the northern side, which is
complete for its length of 70 feet, and 20 and 30
feet respectively of the walls returning along
the flanks. The masonry is built of reddish
freestone ashlar set in large courses and is
covered with a dense growth of ivy. At the
base of these walls a heavy offset course with
a weathered top returns exteriorly. In the
northern wall, at the level of the enceinte,
an arched doorway, which has been closed by
double doors, gives access to the northern
portion of the site, beneath which is the sub-
terranean chamber known as the " Goblin
Ha'." On the interior of this wall can be
seen the beam-holes for two floors above the
level of the enceinte, and on the west wall,
on the floor above this level, is a slightly
projecting basin with an ogival head and an
external outlet with a stone spout. In the
north-east corner are the foundations of
secondary buildings, which have been covered

146

with a penthouse roof, the sloping raggle for
which can be seen on the interior of the north
wall. These and the other buildings have been
roofed with stone slates, several fragments of
which can be seen amongst the debris.
A ruinous stone staircase leads down beneath
the north wall to what is now the most inter-
esting and the only complete chamber of
the castle, the " Goblin Ha' " (fig. 80). It is an
oblong chamber 37 feet long and 13 feet 2 inches
broad, set not rectangularly to the northern
wall of enceinte but inclined to the north-east.
It is built of ashlar and is roofed with a pointed
stone vault with massive close set ribs ; these
are mortised at springing level to receive the
joists of a mezzanine floor ; both floors are
entered from pointed arched doorways on the
south but are otherwise unlighted. Adjoining
the lower doorway at the south-east angle is
a cupboard with an arched head, checked for a
door and penetrating 6 feet within the wall.
In the north wall is a fireplace opening of
early type. Some 6 feet above floor level are
two massive corbels 5 feet apart, on the outer
sides of which are lesser corbels ; immediately
over each main corbel is a beam-hole pene-
trating some 6 feet within the wall, and above
this level the breast of the fireplace is splayed
back, as it ascends upwards, to a square flue
emerging in that portion of the site north of
the main wall of enceinte. Bearers would be
inserted in the beam-holes and would have a
further support on the large corbels ; these
joists would support a sloping hood. The
lesser corbels probably were intended as rests
for lamps or vessels.
In the northern end of each of the lateral
walls is a high pointed arched doorway with
slots in the ingoings for the massive bars
which secured the doors ; beyond these doors
may be seen the start of a passage covered
with a pointed vault. These doorways have
probably been intended as sally ports emerging
midway down the steep slope on the flanks of
the site. At a subsequent period these have
been altered ; that on the west is contracted,
and a lower vaulted passage emerges well
down the slope ; the eastern doorway has
been partially blocked up, and within it is
formed the entrance to a straggling staircase
which descends steeply for 20 feet, where it
terminates under the north-eastern angle of the