Note on Plate of Duns Castle. By J. Ferguson, 

 F.S.A. (Scot.), Duns. (Plate XII.) 



The view of Duns Castle, as it existed in 1817, shown 

 in Plate XXL, is reproduced by the courteous permission of 

 E. M. Hay, Esq., the proprietor, from a drawing preserved 

 in the Castle, and is intended to illustrate the notices of 

 this historic building given in the Club's Proceedings for 

 1892. The drawing is only a hasty sketch, somewhat 

 faulty in perspective ; but the very absence of artistic 

 qualities affords a guarantee that it is a faithful represent- 

 ation of the building at the time. No greater contrast can 

 well be imagined than that between the plain, unadorned, 

 almost homely structure exhibited in the Plate, and the 

 splendid mansion into which it was converted in 1820, by 

 the cultivated taste of the late Colonel Hay. 



The drawing shows the building as viewed from the 

 south. The portion to the east, or right, is the ancient 

 tower built in the early part of the 14th century, by 

 Randolph, Earl of Moray, which had evidently lost its 

 original battlements and roof, and most of its old features, 

 before the operations of 1820. It was in this part of the 

 Castle that the Covenanting leaders held their councils of 

 war when the army lay on Duns Law in 1639, and the 

 room in which these deliberations took place, as well as the 

 bedroom assigned to General Leslie, is still pointed out. 



The lower portion to the west was the addition made by 

 the Honourable Elizabeth Seton, daughter of Viscount 

 Kingston, and wife of the first Mr Hay of Drummelzier 

 and Duns Castle, in the end of the 17th century or the 

 beginning of the 18th. 



