THIRD PERIOD 296 LEVEN CASTLE the well-guarded lobby at the entrance, these being features common to most of the keeps of the period. This leads us to infer that the straight stair was the original one, and that the newel stair connecting the two towers was a subsequent addition. The hollow in the wall of the wing, where access from the stair is obtained on the different floors, has also the makeshift appearance of an addition. The vault seen in the foreground (Fig. 250) has probably been connected with outbuildings in the barmkin. FIG. 250. Leven Castle. View from the South- West. Before 1547 this castle .belonged to the Mortons. At that date it passed to the family of the Sempills, and it is not unlikely that the remodelling was carried out about that time. It is now the property of the Shaw Stewarts. INVERKIP CASTLE, RENFREWSHIRE, The original seat of the Stewarts, now represented by Sir Michael R. Shaw Stewart, is situated on the edge of a cliff near Inverkip, on the Firth of Clyde. There was a castle here in the days of Bruce, which is referred to by Barbour, but the present building (Fig. 251) is evidently of later date, probably about the end of the fifteenth century. The style of corbelling at the parapet was not introduced till about that
