Building a Castle — Welcome , Historical castles, Interesting Facts

A lot of experienced craftsmen, including, but not limited to, stonemasons, for the stones treatment, carpenters, for the wood treatment, and, of course, blacksmiths, for the locks, were needed for the creation of a single castle. The master builder, who designed the entire castle, supervised each of these activities, to make sure everything goes right with the castle.

How long did it take to create one single castle?

The creation of the earlier wooden models took no more than a few days, but the creation of the new stone castles could take a few years. Keep in mind that the builders back then did not have fancy modern tools and equipment. All they had to rely on were simple tools like huge wheels, operated by a man walking inside them. Those wheels were critical for the lifting of heavy objects, because if the builders could not lift the materials then they could never build a castle.

But how did the experienced craftsmen shape the huge stone blocks?

In order to even cut the stone blocks, the stonemasons used huge saws, that could not be operated by a single person. It took two experienced craftsmen to operate the saw and cut the stone blocks. Once the stones were cut, they need to be shaped. To do that the craftsmen used lines to initially mark how the block will be shaped. After that they used chisels to shape the stones. In order to save time and energy, the craftsmen had to complete as much of this amazing task as possible back in the quarry.

Once the stone blocks were ready, the craftsmen had to complete the castle walls with them. But how did they do that?

The craftsmen usually used square stone blocks, which they shaped with a hammer and a chisel for the construction, where they used mortar to attach the blocks to one another so that the attackers could not push them down.

Now we know how the craftsmen shaped the stone blocks and used them for the construction. But how did they place them on the perfect place? What method did they use?

In order to place the block at the perfect position of the construction the craftsmen used technology, which is still used today — They used a reel.

Curious fact:

Did you ever wonder why the stairs in the castles were circularly build? The stairs were built circularly, going left for one very specific and yet simple reason. And that reason is that in the event of an attack the defender could easily attack with his weapon, while for the attacker it would be a lot more difficult.

Castle Types

We now know how the medieval castles were built. It sure took a lot of experience and knowledge. But not all castles were the same. They changed not only over time, but there were different types of castles depending on their location and many other factors.

This article takes a look at the various types of castles that were built. There are of course many different types but they can be readily broken down into a few easy to understand categories. For the most part it is reasonably easy to achieve this breakdown in castle types because they are something that changed over the course of centuries due to improvements in architecture, masonry, mathematics, and other skills. And, the builders of castles, because of centuries of experience, designed castles that were more effective.

An interesting aspect of the development and types of castles is how they were often transformed from one type into the next. A castle could almost be like a living thing where an early motte and bailey site was torn down and a keep was built on it. Then in later centuries it would be expanded into a shell keep and even later it could be further improved and developed into a concentric type castle. And, when the usefulness as protection was outlived because of modernized warfare some were even transformed into pure living quarters for royalty.

In this article I will show you the major types of castles in the context of how they came about in a rough time line.

Motte and Bailey Castle — This type of castle isn’t what we typically think of when we think “castle” but the Motte and Bailey is the first type of European castle. They are considered to be the beginnings of the great castle age. These were prolific between the 10th and 12th centuries. And it is believed that there were as many as 500 of them just in Great Britain.

About the Motte and Bailey: A Motte is a mound of dirt and a Bailey is a courtyard surrounded by a wall or a fence.

The Construction of a Motte and Bailey: Two circular ditches were dug one smaller and one larger. And the soil removed from the ditches was used to build up the Motte and to form a berm around the ditches. Then a stockade fence and a keep were built.

You can see by the drawing that there were many similarities to castles that would come in later times. Good examples of this are the keep, the surrounding fence (which in later castles were stone), the Bridges and the gatehouse.

The Rectangular Keep ( also called a donjon or dungeon) 11th and 12th Centuries

The Rectangular Keep was the early types of castles that we are more familiar with today. They were built of stone and tended to have very high and thick walls. They were an improvement in stone on the Motte and Bailey. But generally they couldn’t be constructed on top of a motte because of the tremendous weight of the stone. A couple of interesting design note about these towers was that often the only entrance into it was actually up on the second floor which made it more difficult for enemies to gain entrance. And they were often surrounded by some kind of a curtain wall like the bailey was. Except the curtain wall was stone. The most famous example of the Keep is the Tower of London.

Drawing of a rectangular keep

The Shell Keep 13th Century

The Basic structure of a Shell keep was a circular or semi-circular shell of stone wall with various buildings inside it. Sometimes a Motte and Bailey was upgraded into a stone shell keep. The Stockade fence around the keep would be replaced with a stone wall. Restormel Castle in England is a fine example of this type of castle.

Shell Keep Floor Plan

The Concentric Castle 13th — 14th Centuries

This type of castle is a combination of the shell keep and the rectangular keep. It is an expression of a very important technique in defense — that of concentric lines of defense. In effect it is a keep surrounded by a wall which in turn is surrounded by another wall. Sometimes there were moats in between these concentric circles or on the very outside. These moats are in themselves further concentric lines of defense.

This series of defenses was a very effective means of protection because attackers had to break through each line of defense one at a time. If a line of defense were penetrated by an attacking army the defenders could retreat to the next inner defense and the attackers would have to start anew against this new line. These lines of defense finished at the center of the grounds with the keep.

Some other important developments in castles were the change from very square blocky buildings to round buildings (particularly towers) Round towers were much stronger and able to resist attack better and a defender looking out the window of a round tower was able to see more. The square towers caused angles that formed blind spots that attackers could hide in.

This illustration of Harlech Castle shows three separate concentric cirlces. Each area that they encompass are called Wards. So it has an inner ward, a middle ward, and an outer ward. Part of the defense of the outer ward is a moat.

A concentric castle plan

The Palace or Royal Quarters — 14th -16th Centuries

Technically we could be blurring the line a little bit when we talk about palaces and living quarters as being castles. But they were a natural extension of the traditional fortress castle and many of the fortress style castles were transformed and upgraded into palaces and living quarters.

As weapons (particularly gunpowder weapons like the cannon) grew better, more powerful and more accurate the castle fortress became less and less effective. It could take years or even decades to build a stone fortress castle and it was now possible to totally destroy it in a few days with steady cannon fire.

This ended the building of castles as fortresses but, the building and architectural techniques were still used to build large structures. The focus now was less on defense and more on lavish living quarters or centers for governing. And many Fortresses that were still standing were also re habilitated and re purposed as living quarters.

In this book you can learn more about the amazing castles all over the world:

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Originally published at https://historicalcastles.com on October 23, 2020.