Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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]
As the gate is always a vulnerable point of a castle, towers may be built near it to strengthen the defences at this point. In crusader castles, there is often a gate tower, with the gate passage leading through the base of the tower itself. In European castles, it is more common to have flanking towers on either side of the gatehouse.
A bent or indirect entrance is a defensive feature in medieval fortification. [1] In a castle with a bent entrance, the gate passage is narrow and turns sharply. Its purpose is to slow down attackers attempting to rush the gate and impede the use of battering rams against doors.
Motte-and-bailey was the prevalent form of castle during 11th and 12th centuries. A courtyard (called a bailey) was protected by a ditch and a palisade (strong timber fence). Often the entrance was protected by a lifting bridge, a drawbridge or a timber gate tower. Inside the bailey were stables, workshops, and a chapel.
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 ...
The Severin Gate in Cologne. In German, a "Torburg", lit. "gate castle", is a relatively autonomous and heavily fortified gateway of a castle or town.Medieval castle gateways of this type usually have additional fortifications in front of them.
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]
Yett hanging in the main entrance of Blackness Castle, Scotland, showing attached bolts and pierced construction.Wrought in 1693. [1]A yett (from the Old English and Scots language word for "gate") [2] is a gate or grille of latticed wrought iron bars used for defensive purposes in castles and tower houses. [3]