Castles are very large stone structures that were made for royalty and knights to live and stay in. In the twelfth century the first castle was built. At the entrance of the castle there was a complex of towers and gates defending the entrance to a castle or town. That complex was called a gatehouse. There were also defensive parapets on top of the castle walls. Those parapets were called battlements. The tops of the wall had solid parts called merlons, which helped to sheltered the defenders during enemy attacks. There were movable wooden frames fitted to the battlements to help defend the walls, those frames were called hourds. Gaps or openings on the floor of the hourds were made so the defenders could drop boulders onto enemy attackers or to put out a fire by dumping water down the gaps. The wooden hourds were made fire proof by stretching damp hides across the roofs. Then later machicolations replaced the hourds. Machicolations were stone versions of hourds.

There was a walled area inside or on the outer wall of the castles protecting the castle gatehouse. That walled area was called the barbican. If any enemies reached the barbican they would be fired upon on all sides by the defenders up on the barbican. To guard the castles from head on enemy attacks the castles had a bridge that could be drawn up or let down to prevent entry to the castle. These bridges were called drawbridges.

The middle building of the castle was called the keep. The keep was a defensive stone structure centered in the castle. The keep was also known as the donjon. Stone walls surrounded the outside of the castle. There were chapels in the castles for knights prying for good luck and victory in a war, or squires praying for guidance on how to become good knights. The chapels were covered with beautiful stone designs along the walls and rows of curved windows outside the chapels would tell people that came to the castle where the chapel was. Some castles had moats, moats were deep trenches in front of the castle. Sometimes the moats was filled with water to keep the enemy out.

Castles sometimes were built on top of hills or mountains for the view of the land that the king and queen owned. The view of the land helped scouts to see if any trespassing caravan or group had entered on their land. It also helped to see any armies coming on their land to attack the castle, so the knights and the rest of the kings army could get ready for the attack.

In the year 1290 there was a mighty castle built not using bulldozers, not using power tools, but only using muscle power. There were blacksmiths that designed tools by heating metal and shaping it with other heavy stone or metal tools. There were carpenters that would saw wood and and assemble scaffolding. The stone mason would carve and create stone bricks or structures for the castle with tools including chisels and mallets. After creating the stone, the stone mason would carve a special mark telling that stone was made by him. Ropes and pulleys were used to haul the heavy load of stone or wood up to the top of the castle.

One thousand years ago castles were usually made of wood. Soon it was replaced by stone because stone was stronger and it could not be burnt down by their enemies as easily as wood could.

Click here for a picture of a side of a castle.

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