Castellated Gothic is easily known, at first sight, by the line of battlements cut out of the solid parapet wall, which surmounts the outline of the building in every part. These generally conceal the roof, which is low, and were originally intended as a shelter to those engaged in defending the building against assaults. Modern buildings in the castellated style, without sacrificing almost everything to strength, as was once necessary, preserve the general character of the ancient castle, while they combine with it almost every modern luxury. In their exteriors, we perceive strong and massive octagonal or circular towers, rising boldly, with corbelled or projecting cornices, above the ordinary level of the building. The windows are either pointed or square-headed, or perhaps a mixture of both. The porch rises into a turreted and embattled gateway, and all the offices and out-buildings connected with the main edifice, are constructed in a style corresponding to that exhibited in the main body of the building. The whole is placed on a distinct and firm terrace of stone, and the expression of the edifice is that of strength and security.
This mode of building is evidently of too ambitious and expensive a kind for a republic, where landed estates are not secured by entail, but divided, according to the dictates of nature, among the different members of a family. It is, perhaps, also rather wanting in appropriateness, castles never having been used for defence in this country. Notwithstanding these objections, there is no very weighty reason why a wealthy proprietor should not erect his mansion in the castellated style, if that style be in unison with his scenery and locality. Few instances, however, of sufficient wealth and taste to produce edifices of this kind, are to be met with among us; and the castellated style is therefore one which we cannot fully recommend for adoption here. Paltry imitations of it, in materials less durable than brick or stone, would be discreditable to any person having the least pretension to correct taste.
