How did they keep castles cool in the summer?

The bioclimatic function The remaining hot air was refrigerated using wet sheets hung beneath the ceilings of the rooms on the upper floors. There was also a large tank situated in front of the castle and collecting the water flowing from the internal fountain.



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The towers featured small windows, designed to capture gusts of wind and funnel them into the building below, like a clever wind-powered fan. Medieval Castles kept cool during the summer due to their thick walls and high ceilings.

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Open fires remained the chief way of heating the palaces until the age of electricity and even today you will find that in some royal and grand houses a perpetual fire in the grate is considered an indispensable tradition. However, there were other ways to keep warm.

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Stone castles are barely warm in the summer months. The thick stone walls also mean thick inserts for the windows, which let in less sunlight to naturally warm the rooms. Thick stone walls also tend to hold onto any moisture in the air. This means those hot and humid summer days can make rooms fairly cool.

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Castles and manor houses often smelled damp and musty. To counteract this, herbs and rushes were strewn across the floors.

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Castles weren't always cold and dark places to live. But, in reality, the great hall of castle had a large open hearth to provide heat and light (at least until the late 12th century) and later it had wall fireplace. The hall would also have had tapestries which would have insulated the room against too much cold.

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Hot Oil was rarely thrown at attackers The idea of buckets of hot oil being dropped on attackers is common in TV and film, but hot oil was rarely used as a weapon. Those defending the castle would sometimes pour hot sand, boiling water or quicklime on attackers who were using scaling ladders to climb the walls.

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The natural ventilation inside the castle was achieved through five main elements: the large pool in the garden at the front, the fountain located on the ground floor, the two ventilating chimneys and large wet sheets hung beneath the ceilings of the various rooms on the upper floors.

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After the 16th century, castles declined as a mode of defense, mostly because of the invention and improvement of heavy cannons and mortars. This artillery could throw heavy cannonballs with so much force that even strong curtain walls could not hold up.

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The first stone castles built were cold, dark, smelly and damp. Inside the castle walls, floor coverings consisted of straw rushes and, later, sweet smelling herbs to mask the smell of animal excrement, grease, rotting food and beer.

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In some castles, the cisterns were located at a high elevation in the castle complex, which allowed lead pipes to be connected to the cistern so there could be running water in various rooms in the castle, but such a luxury was rare.

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In the medieval period luxury castles were built with indoor toilets known as 'garderobes', and the waste dropped into a pit below.

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The toilets of a castle were usually built into the walls so that they projected out on corbels and any waste fell below and into the castle moat. Even better, waste went directly into a river as is the case of the latrines of one of the large stone halls at Chepstow Castle in Wales, built from the 11th century CE.

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The stench of horse manure The 17th century was also full of foul smells; the stench could be dreadful everywhere. Mains water, sewer systems, deodorant, toothpaste, washing machines, fridges: none of these existed yet – with all the inherent consequences.

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