Castle Lachlan (5)

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Castle Lachlan (5)
Castle Lachlan (5)

This drawing, made by the redoubtable Messrs MacGibbon & Ross for their 5 volume work, the Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, shows the lower two floors of the castle, with the entrance we saw in the previous photo shown in the south wall at the bottom.

What makes Castle Lachlan so unusual is that despite the appearance given by the external walls, the building was not a massive solid keep, covered by a single roof. The castle's entrance leads into a long but very narrow courtyard, 12 feet 6 inches wide by 34 feet 3 inches long - almost more a passage than a courtyard. On the east and west sides of this open court, are tenements containing all the rooms, and these are joined at the north end, by a small room at each level. Curiously, these rooms do not contain connecting passages, indeed the one at ground floor level, contains the castle's well.

The two circles, repeated at each level, were obviously spiral stairs. The main stair was the one to the south, beside the entrance, which opened through a (now blocked up) door directly from the courtyard and rose up to the Hall and probably beyond. The one at the north end, beside the well, serviced the east tenement.

Interestingly, an early manuscript tells us that from the side of the north stair "a small trap-door and stair led down at the back of the well, and terminated at the beach, doubtless to serve in any emergency."

All the ground floor rooms have a 14ft high vault and are currently inaccessible. The kitchen is believed to have been in the south-west chamber. It is noticeable from the plan that there are only two external openings at ground floor level - a very small window in the south wall of the kitchen and a gun-loop in the west wall. This is made possible by the central court, onto which all the doors and the remaining windows open.

Presumably for protective structural reasons, a great number of the doors and windows have been built up, as shown on the drawing, probably in the mid 19th century, when stabilisation work was carried out on the castle to protect it from the weather.

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Taken on: February 8, 2016
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