The fortress itself was roughly 260 feet in length and 120 feet in breadth. The walls were over six feet thick and stood two dozen feet tall to the base of the crenellations. The battlements above the walls consisted of toothed merlons that stood on the ramparts at the height of a man’s head. All the battlements were offset from the walls, braced using corbels to create machicolations. These machicolations were open areas at the base of the crenellations on the walls and buildings. They were part of the castle’s defenses, created so that enemies could not hide at the base of the wall while attacking. If they attempted this, boiling water or heated sand or any number of things could be dropped on top of them.

 

The barbican or gatehouse sat on the western wall, flanked by twin towers that housed the main barracks. Above the gatehouse was another rampart, complete with the same machicolations and other battlements that ran across the curtain walls and towers. Gated off murder-holes sat directly above the chamber between the two portcullises in the wench room. All of this could only be reached after crossing the drawbridge over the moat.

 

Foulis castle’s bailey was very long and had areas near the Keep set aside for the vegetable garden, the goats, chickens, and milch cows as well but they mostly ran loose safe within the walls. Running down the center of the bailey were more gardens while still leaving plenty of open areas for training and projects.

 

On either side of the gatehouse were areas set aside for the other livestock that were kept within the walls. The swine were in a pen with a shed in the southwestern corner. In the northwestern corner, there were the small stables for the Lord and Ladies’ horses with the rest in the larger stables outside of the curtain wall.

 

The main three-story building was a ‘W’ shaped manor keep, with five-story towers on each outer corner. The Keep was set against the more eastern back wall, with the entrance coming from the west. Both sides of the long curtain walls were flanked with two-story shops and buildings, interspaced between four, three-story guard towers, two on each side of the long northern and southern walls. These towers also held more barracks for the garrison, plus storage and supplies.

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From Bannockburn: A Secret Ending
C.R. Bell