Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1097489
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1097489
THE GREAT HALL.
In consequence of inequalities in the site the Great Hall is complicated in its arrangement. On the S. and W. the Rock has descended in natural terraces, on which two vaulted storeys have been constructed to form a base for the main building at the level of Crown Square. As might be expected, the lower series of vaults is shallower than the upper one. From the outset two of the lower vaults were set apart as prisons, but the larger vaults above were also utilised at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries for Dutch and French prisoners of war, some of whom have left their names behind (Fig. 80). The outer wall of the upper vaults is set back from the wall-face below, to leave room for a parapet-walk from which two compartments are entered. Three compartments on each floor are entered by way of a vaulted passage on the W., while two on the upper floor are reached from the E. The windows overlooking the parapet-walk are heavily barred.
The Hall itself, built in the reign of James IV, rests on the upper vaults but covers a smaller area, measuring externally only 95 by 41 ft., and the ancillary rooms have accordingly had to be accommodated in adjoining buildings at either end, both of which have been rebuilt. Thus the chamber of dais occupied a first floor on the E., while the kitchen stood to the W. until it was removed in the 17thcentury. For nearly two hundred years the Hall was used as a barrack and hospital ; two intermediate floors were introduced for these purposes and the general remodelling was so extensive that the restoration of 1888 had to be equally drastic .Much of the building now seen is consequently modern. There is least alteration on the S. side, where only the windows and roof-parapet have been restored. Yet even on the side towards Crown Square there is some evidence of the 16th-century arrangement. For example, one can tell that the original entrance was large and central, and that it was masked in front by a covered passage of wood such as existed at the same time on the opposite wall of St. Mary's Church. The present entrance at the W. end of the N. wall is modern. The interior has been transformed to house a collection of arms and armour, apart from which the only feature of special interest is the fine, open timber roof. This has hammer-beams, carved with human and animal masks, set out on Renaissance corbels carved with such motifs as portraits, said to be those of King James IV and Margaret Tudor; the same king's initials, I R 4, below a crown ; the Royal Arms below a crown ; a cherub's head ; a fleur-de-lys ;thistle and rose slips in a vase ; and a sun in splendour containing the sacred monogram I H S in the centre, surmounted by a cross.
RCAHMS 1951
