What was inside the walls of a castle?

Inside the Walls. The outer wall of a castle was called the Bailey. Inside the Bailey were buildings where the lord of the castle's cattle, horses and servants lived. Some of the soldiers needed to defend the castle might live in part of the gatehouse (known as the Barbican).



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Walls were generally built of stone within wooden frames designed to hold the stone in place while the mortar dried. For thick walls, the wall was usually constructed with a cavity that was filled with rubble rather than being solid stone. Where strength was not so vital, the cavity sometimes contained a staircase.

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Castle owners always had private 'apartments', or at least a bedroom with an en-suite loo and a chamber where they welcomed visitors. There was often a private chapel too. These were usually in the safest part of the castle, and only trusted servants or honoured guests were allowed in.

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Curtain wall castles In medieval castles, the area surrounded by a curtain wall, with or without towers, is known as the bailey. The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site.

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A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town.

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Arrow slits, also known as loopholes, were narrow openings in castle walls that allowed archers to shoot arrows at attackers while remaining protected behind the walls. These openings were designed to be very narrow, which made it difficult for attackers to shoot back, and also provided protection for the archers.

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The height of walls varied widely by castle, but were often 2.5–6 m (8.2–19.7 ft) thick. They were usually topped with crenellation or parapets that offered protection to defenders.

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Medieval castle walls were usually very thick for both protection and structure, anywhere from ten to twenty feet in thickness. They were designed to be impenetrable from the outside, although that certainly did not stop outsiders from trying.

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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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In the medieval period luxury castles were built with indoor toilets known as 'garderobes', and the waste dropped into a pit below. It was the job of the 'Gongfarmer' to remove it – one of the smelliest jobs in history?

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They were stronger than hourdes and would withstand crossbow quarrels and even stones hurled by stone throwing siege engines.

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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.

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The entrance to the castle was always its weakest point. Drawbridges could be pulled up, preventing access across moats. Tall gate towers meant that defenders could shoot down in safety at attacks below. The main gate or door to the castle was usually a thick, iron-studded wooden door, that was hard to break through.

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Forde-Johnston describes such a site as a castle in which water plays a prominent part in the defences. Apart from hindering attackers, an abundant supply of water was also an advantage during a siege. Topographically, such structures are a type of low-lying castle.

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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.

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What other rooms were there in a Medieval castle? At the time of Chr tien de Troyes, the rooms where the lord of a castle, his family and his knights lived and ate and slept were in the Keep (called the Donjon), the rectangular tower inside the walls of a castle. This was meant to be the strongest and safest place.

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A battlement is the upper walled part of a castle or fortress.

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A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence.

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moat, a depression surrounding a castle, city wall, or other fortification, usually but not always filled with water. The existence of a moat was a natural result of early methods of fortification by earthworks, for the ditch produced by the removal of earth to form a rampart made a valuable part of the defense system.

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