Standing Building Recording

Date 8 November 2005 - 22 December 2005

Event ID 1034189

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1034189

NT 269 738 As part of the final stage of the services upgrade programme for the palace, elements of the NW Tower of James V were recorded in advance of a new service track installation between October and December 2005. The recent survey work and documentary research has reviewed the original layout of the tower and its later history.

The tower was conceived of as a free-standing structure, to the NW of and slightly detached from the pre-existing palace. Its ground floor consisted of two chambers with stone barrel-vaults, the western of which still survives. In August 1529, when the surviving documentation begins, the vaults were already in place and work had started on the upper walls.

The internal space of the tower consisted of two principal rooms on each floor, with smaller rooms in the western rounds. These rooms on the first and second floors formed the outer and inner chambers of the stacked royal lodging. Each of these apartments had separate access. The continued rebuilding of the palace by James V saw the integration of the originally freestanding tower with adjacent structures.

Access to the gardens to the N was by means of a raised timber gallery entered from a new floor in the N wall of the outer chamber. This gallery was demolished in 1676 and replaced with a stone built wing intended as an extension of the royal apartments.

The stair in the NE round was extended upwards to give access to both the upper floor of the tower and the E quarter. This made the smaller stair within the wall of the tower redundant.

The to straight stairs connecting the N wall of the inner chambers were replaced by a turnpike stair that rose from the ground. This is likely to have been inserted when the northern extension was created in c.1676.

After the demolition of the northern extension in the early 19th century, the N wall was refaced and new narrow slit windows placed to light the stair. The doorway from the first floor was sealed and the inner part of this aperture converted into a cupboard.

G Ewart and D Gallagher 2006

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

Kirkdale Archaeology