#strathbogie

Huntly Castle by Arjayempee Via Flickr:  This is the westernmost of the three vaulted cellars (the middle one of which being the kitchen). The room visible through the door to the right is in the round tower, directly above the dungeon and was apparently a bedroom, perhaps for the castle's steward or the laird's attendant. The room above that, next to the Hall, was the laird's room, in which the 5th Earl died of an apoplectic stroke on 20th October 1576! The Earl was apparently outside  "on the green" playing "futball" when the fatal seizure struck him down. In the neighbourhood of the green was " ane peit-stake," against which he tried to support himself in his distress. His attendants carried him into the castle, and "buire him in to his owin chalmer, and laid him in his bed: quhilk chalmer (which chamber) was ane round within the grit chalmer of the New warke of Strabogie." This contemporary description tells us that the Earl's bedroom was a chamber in the great round south-western tower, and that it lay "within" - i.e. beyond or through the great chamber, or Hall.