Why did a castle have strong high walls?

Attackers had to climb over them to get closer to the castle. The walls of the castles were very high making it hard for attackers to climb over.



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Watch Towers (Guettes) Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may observe the surrounding area.

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Build thick walls and battlements The castle also has high 'curtain walls' which protect the castle's inner and outer 'wards' or 'baileys'. These are the courtyard areas inside the walls where important buildings like the keep, or perhaps stables and storehouses would have been built.

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What were the strongest castles ever built?
  • Mehrangarh – Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. ...
  • Hohensalzburg Fortress – Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria. ...
  • Edinburgh Castle – Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. ...
  • Le Mont-Saint-Michel – Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy, France. ...
  • Murud-Janjira – Murud, Maharashtra, India.


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Particularly large towers are often the strongest point of the castle: the keep or the bergfried. As the gate is always a vulnerable point of a castle, towers may be built near it to strengthen the defences at this point.

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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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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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Castle of Zafra, Campillo de Duenas This partly restored castle in Spain was built in the late 12th century or early 13th century. It holds the distinction of never being conquered.

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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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As far back as the 9th century, lords built wooden castles to protect themselves from the Vikings. Wooden lookout towers were built on a hill and surrounded by wooden fencing.

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There are always exceptions to this, but it would appear that a few hundred years is the maximum a castle will survive without maintenance. A very well built castle will last indefinitely. Older castles may last longer than more recent ones.

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