HOUSTON HOUSE 513 FOURTH PERIOD century, and a still later addition (at the point marked " ne^ " on the Plan), consisting of an entrance porch, was erected against the east gable, so as to avoid the necessity of entering the house through the arched gateway and courtyard. Opposite this a new doorway has been opened into the main staircase, which has been altered at the foot to suit the new entrance. The plan shows the original entrance before this eastern doorway was made. Judging from the plan, it is quite probable that the part of the house at the south-east angle, including the two south-east- most rooms on the ground floor, was at first a keep, and that all the other buildings, with staircases, etc., have been added, and the keep itself FIG. 938. Houston House. Plan. gradually transformed into the characteristic specimen of an old Scottish house that we now see (Fig. 939). Favouring this idea, there is on the first floor a wheel stair in the thickness of the wall now disused, and the steps taken out, while on the next floor there is a similar stair treated in the same way. For neither of these stairs would there seem to have been any use, had the large scale-and-platt stair been contem- poraneous with their erection, and they are just such stairs as are to be found in simple oblong keeps. At the time of the transformation (supposing this theory to be correct) from a keep to a mansion-house, the windows would be enlarged and the centre window of the south front was then evidently changed into a door with a raised seventeenth-century O.G. moulding round the outside. Probably at the same time the kitchen and the room off it were built, together with the enclosing walls and back offices. Again an alteration seems to have taken place in 1731 (or 51, the top stroke of the penultimate figure being illegible), as this date is carved on the lintel of the entrance door from the courtyard. On the first floor the rooms have been mostly finished with wooden panelling, and pilasters with carved capitals and cornices. These were unfortunately many years ago VOL. II. 2 K
