Today
The tower house itself has been extensively restored over the past century, but nothing visible remains of the surrounding walls and buildings. The latter half of the 1900s saw the point on which the tower house stands gradually surrounded by reclaimed land and harbour developments.
Before entering, make sure you take note of the corbelling at every corner of the tower house, a trademark of Andrew Crawford.
Internally the ground floor reveals the vaulted store, used as an exhibition area, and kitchen, complete with well. Plus a porter's lodge that could double as a prison.
Most visitors to the castle during its active life would have headed directly up the main staircase on entering the tower. This is a grand affair of wide steps and square landings and leads directly up to the hall on the first floor. Today the hall is open to the elements. There were originally two more floors above it, providing secure accommodation for the castle's most important residents.
Spiral stairs from opposing corners of the main hall originally led up to these higher floors. One is long gone. The other still provides access to rooms in the south wing of the castle, one of which is open to visitors. This gives a higher level view of the great hall, and a sense of just how grand a place this would have been in its all too brief heyday.
Read more about this topic: Scalloway Castle
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