A report on Castle and Sally port

Dating back to the early 12th century, the Alcázar of Segovia is one of the most distinctive castles in Europe.

A sally port in the flank of a bastion at Dömitz Fortress in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Built in 1385, Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, England, is surrounded by a water-filled moat.

A blocked-up medieval sally port at the Cittadella in Gozo, Malta

The Norman White Tower, the keep of the Tower of London, exemplifies all uses of a castle including city defence, a residence, and a place of refuge in times of crisis.

The Old West Sally Port at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland

Windsor Castle in England was founded as a fortification during the Norman Conquest and today is one of the principal official residences of Queen Elizabeth II.

Baba Vida medieval castle build on the banks of the Danube in Vidin, Bulgaria

São Jorge Castle in Lisbon, Portugal, with a bridge over a moat

The wooden palisades on top of mottes were often later replaced with stone, as in this example at Château de Gisors in France.

A courtyard of the 14th-century Raseborg Castle in Finland

The 14th-century keep of Château de Vincennes near Paris towers above the castle's curtain wall. The wall exhibits features common to castle architecture: a gatehouse, corner towers, and machicolations.

Beaumaris Castle in Anglesey, North Wales, with curtain walls between the lower outer towers, and higher inner curtain walls between the higher inner towers.

A 13th-century gatehouse in the château de Châteaubriant, France. It connects the upper ward to the lower one.

Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland is surrounded by a moat.

Daorson, Bosnia, built around a prehistoric central fortified settlement or acropolis (existed there cca. 17/16th c. to the end of the Bronze Age, cca. 9/8th c. BCE), surrounded by cyclopean walls (similar to Mycenae) dated to the 4th c. BCE.

Borġ in-Nadur fort in Malta, built during the Tarxien phase and used until the Bronze Age.

The Bayeux Tapestry contains one of the earliest representations of a castle. It depicts attackers of the Château de Dinan in France using fire, a major threat to wooden castles.

Built in 1138, Castle Rising in Norfolk, England is an example of an elaborate donjon.

Albarrana tower in Paderne Castle, Portugal

The gatehouse to the inner ward of Beeston Castle in Cheshire, England, was built in the 1220s, and has an entrance between two D-shaped towers.

Krak des Chevaliers in Syria is a concentric castle built with both rectangular and rounded towers. It is one of the best-preserved Crusader castles.

The design of Edward I's Harlech Castle (built in the 1280s) in North Wales was influenced by his experience of the Crusades.

The northern walls of the Gran Castello in Gozo, Malta, were built in the 15th century.

Corvin Castle in Transylvania (built between 1446 and 1480) was one of the biggest in Eastern Europe at that time.

The angled bastion, as used in Copertino Castle in Italy, was developed around 1500. First used in Italy, it allowed the evolution of artillery forts that eventually took over the military role of castles.

Neuschwanstein is a 19th-century historicist (neoromanesque) castle built by Ludwig II of Bavaria, inspired by the romanticism of the time.

Castello Dei Baroni, a country residence in Wardija, Malta, designed with castle-like features.

A 19th-century depiction by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc of the construction of the large tower at Coucy Castle in France, with scaffolding and masons at work. The putlog holes mark the position of the scaffolding in earlier stages of construction. The tower was blown up in 1917.

Experimental archeology castle building at Guédelon Castle site in France (2015).

God Speed! by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1900: a late Victorian view of a lady giving a favour to a knight about to do battle.

Highland castles such as Château de Montségur in southern France have become the popular idea of where castles should be found because they are photogenic, where in reality castles were built in a variety of places due to a range of considerations.

Srebrenik Fortress in Srebrenik, Bosnia: inaccessibility of location with only a narrow bridge traversing deep canyon provides excellent protection.

Almourol Castle in Portugal, which stands on a small islet in the Tejo River.

Tavastia Castle in Hämeenlinna, Finland, one of the northernmost castles in Europe. The exact date of construction of the castle is unclear, as far as it is known to have been built in the late 13th century, but the first mention of it in contemporary documents is from 1308. It was built close to Lake Vanajavesi.

An early 13th-century drawing by Matthew Paris showing contemporary warfare, including the use of castles (here Lincoln Castle), crossbowmen and mounted knights.

A reconstructed trebuchet at Château des Baux in Bouches-du-Rhône in the south of France.

Sallies are a common way for besieged forces to reduce the strength and preparedness of a besieging army; a sally port is therefore essentially a door in a castle or city wall that allows troops to make sallies without compromising the defensive strength of fortifications.

- Sally port

Sometimes a sally port was included; this could allow the garrison to leave the castle and engage besieging forces.

- Castle

2 related topics with Alpha

Postern

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Postern in the rampart of Provins, Seine-et-Marne, France

The postern of Newport Arch, built by the ancient Romans in Lincoln, England, located to the right of the larger main arch, and used for pedestrian traffic

A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall.

In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a sally port, allowing defenders to make a sortie on the besiegers.

Siege

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Military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault.

Picture of the siege of Rancagua during the Chilean War of Independence

Assyrians using siege ladders in a relief of attack on an enemy town during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III 720–738 BCE from his palace at Kalhu (Nimrud)

The Egyptian siege of Dapur in the 13th century BC, from Ramesseum, Thebes

Depiction of various siege machines in the mid-16th century

Medieval trebuchets could sling about two projectiles per hour at enemy positions.

Cahir Castle in Ireland was besieged and captured three times: in 1599 by the Earl of Essex, in 1647 by Lord Inchiquin, and in 1650 by Oliver Cromwell.

Chinese and Korean troops assault the Japanese forces of Hideyoshi in the siege of Ulsan Castle during the Imjin War (1592–1598).

Late 16th-century illustration of cannon with gabions

The siege of Candia, regarded as one of the longest sieges in history (1648–1669)

Vauban's star-shaped fortified city of Neuf-Brisach

The Battle of Vienna took place in 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months.

Storming of Redoubt#10 during the siege of Yorktown

British infantry attempt to scale the walls of Badajoz, Peninsular War, 1812

French Engineer Corps during the siege of Antwerp, 1832

This sepoy PoW shows the conditions of the garrison at Kut at the end of the siege in World War I.

Map showing Axis encirclement during the siege of Leningrad (1942–1943)

French troops seeking cover in trenches, Dien Bien Phu, 1954

Sarajevo residents collecting firewood, winter of 1992–1993

Map of destroyed infrastructure following the Siege of Marawi, 2017

The conflagration of the Mount Carmel Center on the final day of the Waco siege

Arrowslits (also called arrow loops or loopholes), sally ports (airlock-like doors) for sallies and deep water wells were also integral means of resisting siege at this time.

In the European Middle Ages, virtually all large cities had city walls—Dubrovnik in Dalmatia is a well-preserved example—and more important cities had citadels, forts, or castles.