moat (motte)

• One of the most famous defences for a castle is the moat of more commonly used and less known is the motte.

• The difference between a moat and a motte is that a motte didn’t have water and was around a lot longer.

Draw bridges

• Another one of the commonly known

• Defences is the draw bridge which was used to cross moats and mottes. They are called draw bridges because they could be drawn up in times of need.

Walls and battements.

• Walls were used as protection and were basically undefeatable by normal soldiers instead would try and starve the castle into surrender they.

• Battlements were a mix of crenels and merlons and generally used to give soldiers and archers cover from enemy archers.

machicolation

• Machicolation are holes or gaps that start inside battlements and the tops of walls that came out partway down the wall. Guards would throw stones and rocks down theses and they would fall on the enemy below.

Murder holes

• Murder holes were like the machicolation but place in the roof of places like the gate house gate house. the purpose of these were that during a siege if the gate was forced open they would drop stones and red hot sand on the enemy to try and slow down the enemy.

The Gate house

• The gate house was one of the most heavily fortified part of the wall. The reason it was this is because it had battlements, gate, metal stubbed door, murder holes, machicolation and the portcullis.

Arrow slots and round towers

• Arrow slots were used in castles. They were tiny slots that an archer could shot out of but were very hard to shot into.

• Round towers were used on corners of walls because they were stronger than towers that had corners.

hills

• Castles were quite often built on top of hills because the extra height meant that they could see an enemy approaching. It also gave their archers extra range.

stairs

• In castles they used spiral stairs that turned in a clock wise direction going up this was because it meant that an if an attacker was right handed they would have to be in the middle of the stairs to attack someone where a defender could use the centre column to hid behind while still able to attack.