Description
Doune occupies a strategic site, close to the geographical centre of Scotland, and only 5 miles (8.0 km) from Stirling Castle, the "crossroads of Scotland". The site is naturally defended on three sides by steeply-sloping ground, and by the two rivers to east and west. The castle forms an irregular pentagon in plan, with buildings along the north and north-west sides enclosing a courtyard. It is entered from the north via a passage beneath a tower containing the principal rooms of the castle. From the courtyard, three sets of stone external stairs, which may be later additions, lead up to the Lord's Hall in the tower, to the adjacent Great Hall, and to the kitchens in a second tower to the west.
The main approach, from the north, is defended by earthworks, comprising three ditches, with a rampart, or earthen wall, between. Also outside the castle walls is a vaulted passage, traditionally said to lead into the castle, but in fact accessing an 18th century ice house. There are no openings within the lower part of the castle's walls, excepting the entrance and the postern, or side gate, to the west, although there are relatively large windows on the upper storeys. Windows in the south wall suggest that further buildings were intended within the courtyard, but were never built. The stonework is of coursed sandstone rubble, with dressings in lighter Ballengeich stone.
Read more about this topic: Doune Castle
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)