What are the up and down parts of a castle called?
Castle Battlements and ParapetsA parapet with alternating raised and lowered sections is known as a battlement. The raised sections of the battlement were known as merlons and the lower parts were called crenels.
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In some castles, there is an inner bailey that is an enclosed area closer to the tower or keep, and an outer bailey which is an area further out from the tower but that is still protected by the curtain wall. Windsor Castle is an example of a castle with a motte and a bailey.
Castle Battlements and ParapetsThe raised sections of the battlement were known as merlons and the lower parts were called crenels. Crenels, sometimes called embrasures, were regularly spaced gaps in the castle battlement. Castle defenders could take protection behind the merlons and fire arrows from the crenels.
Crenellation is a feature of defensive architecture, most typically found on the battlements of medieval castles. A battlement is a low, defensive parapet. The act of crenellation is the cutting of crenels into a previously solid and straight parapet wall.
Batter (Plinth) The angled lower part of a tower or wall. Missiles dropped from the top of the towers or wall onto the plinth cause them to richochet horizontally into the attackers doing more damage. Plinths also strengthened the bases of the towers or walls and also made it harder to undermine them.
In architecture, the talus is a feature of some late medieval castles, especially prevalent in crusader constructions. It consists of a battered (sloping) face at the base of a fortified wall.
external features - such as towers battlements, thick walls, a moat, a drawbridge, etc. internal features - such as a well, large stores to guard against siege, a hall for everyone to socialise.
In fortification architecture, a bank or rampart is a length of embankment or wall forming part of the defensive boundary of a castle, hillfort, settlement or other fortified site. It is usually broad-topped and made of excavated earth and/or masonry.
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification.
In a medieval castle, a garderobe was usually a simple hole discharging to the outside into a cesspit (akin to a pit latrine) or the moat (like a fish pond toilet), depending on the structure of the building.
Often, these walls sloped away at the base to redirect objects dropped from the top of the castle wall, ricocheting them out at soldiers on the ground. Because they had walls to protect them, castle defenders would sometimes hunker down and try to wait out their attackers.
A portcullis is a heavy castle door or gate made of metal strips that form a grid. A castle guardian might lower the portcullis to protect the people inside from an invading army. It was common during medieval times for castles to be protected by a portcullis or two.