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The elevated entrance is the lowest and frequently the only way of entering a fortified building or residence. In the case of circular towers, a large opening in the main wall at ground level was a potential weakness and experts on castle design have argued that the elevated entrance served a structural as well as defensive purpose. [1]
A castle could act as a stronghold and prison but was also a place where a knight or lord could entertain his peers. [12] Over time the aesthetics of the design became more important, as the castle's appearance and size began to reflect the prestige and power of its occupant. Comfortable homes were often fashioned within their fortified walls.
Portcullis at Desmond Castle, Adare, County Limerick, Ireland The inner portcullis of the Torre dell'Elefante in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy A portcullis (from Old French porte coleice 'sliding gate') is a heavy, vertically closing gate typically found in medieval fortifications. [1]
A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most heavily armed section of a fortification, to compensate for being structurally the weakest and the ...
Beaumaris Castle in Wales was built in the late 13th century and is an example of concentric castles which developed in the late medieval period. Badajoz Castle of Topoľčany in Slovakia Medieval fortification refers to medieval military methods that cover the development of fortification construction and use in Europe , roughly from the fall ...
South gate of Friedestrom Castle with its wicket (pedestrian entrance) Gate and wicket (manway) of Alsfeld's New Town Hall. Wickets are typically small, narrow doors either alongside or within a larger castle or city gate. The latter were often double gates, large and heavy, designed to allow the passage of wagons, coaches and horsemen.
Beaumaris Castle was built at around sea-level and was constructed from local Anglesey stone. [113] The castle design formed an inner and an outer ward, surrounded in turn by a moat, now partially filled. [114] The main entrance to the castle was the "Gate next the Sea", next to the castle's tidal dock that allowed it to be supplied directly by ...
Plan of the outer and inner baileys of Alt-Trauchburg Castle (Germany). The Graben is the neck ditch, and to its right is the inner bailey, accessible over a wooden bridge. Topoľčany Castle with an inner and an outer bailey. The inner bailey or inner ward of a castle is the strongly fortified enclosure at the heart of a medieval castle. [1]