Castle and Related Topics

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

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.

Keep

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A 19th-century reconstruction of the keep at Château d'Étampes

Reconstructed wooden keep at Saint-Sylvain-d'Anjou

1899 Ordnance Survey map of the fortified Royal Naval Dockyard (to become the North Yard on completion of the South Yard shown then under construction) in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, with its Keep at the northern (right) end

A keep (from the Middle English kype) is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility.

Krak des Chevaliers (Syria), the best preserved of the concentric crusader castles

Concentric castle

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Star-shaped plan of the citadel of Lille (France), designed by Vauban

Kidwelly Castle, south-west Wales, 13th century

Beaumaris Castle, on the island of Anglesey at the north-west of Wales, 1295

The Byzantine castle of Korykos from the sea c.11th cent. AD. It featured fully concentric features a century before the first examples of concentric fortifications were seen in the West

Caerphilly Castle, south of Wales, 13th century

A concentric castle is a castle with two or more concentric curtain walls, such that the outer wall is lower than the inner and can be defended from it.

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, Colombia. Cartagena's colonial walled city and fortress were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Fortification

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Military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime.

Maiden Castle in 1935. The Iron Age hillfort was first built in 600 BC.

Early 20th century aerial photograph of the fortifications of Valletta, Malta which were built in the 16th and 17th centuries

Aerial photograph of Fort Vossegat, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Han dynasty tomb brick showing gate towers

Han dynasty tomb brick showing watchtowers

Remains of a fortified village, Borġ in-Nadur, Malta. Borġ in-Nadur is a notable example of Bronze Age-fortifications.

Reconstructed walls of Bibracte, a Gaulish oppidum, showing the construction technique known as murus gallicus. Oppida were large fortified settlements used during the Iron Age.

Defensive wall of the ancient city of Dholavira, Gujarat 2600 BCE

The Great Wall of China near Jinshanling. The Great Wall was a series of fortifications built across the historical northern borders of China.

An American flag raised at the Fort Santiago, 1898. Fort Santiago was a citadel that was a part of the Intramuros, a walled city within Manilla.

Map of the defences available during the Battle of the Trench, 627. Muslim defenders repelled the Confederates using Medina's natural fortifications and makeshift trenches.

Medieval defensive walls and towers in Szprotawa, Poland, made of field stone and bog iron.

John Smith's 1624 map of the fortifications of the Castle Harbour Islands and St. George's Harbour in Bermuda. Construction beginning in 1612, these were the first stone fortifications, with the first coastal artillery batteries, built by England in the New World.

Table of a typical bastion fort, 1728. The development of bastion forts resulted from the increased use of cannons and firearms in the 14th century.

Suomenlinna, a sea fortress from 18th century in Helsinki, Finland

The ditch and counter scarp of Fort Delimara. Built in 1878, Delimara was built as a typical polygonal fort ditches and counter scarps made to be very deep, vertically sided, and cut directly into the rocks.

The tunnels of Fort de Mutzig, German fortifications built in 1893. By the 19th century, tunnels were used to connect blockhouses and firing points in the ditch to the fort.

Gun emplacement in Fort Campbell, built in the 1930s. Due to the threat of aerial warfare, the buildings were placed at a distance from each other, making it difficult to find from the air.

A GBU-24 missile hits the ground. The development of bunker busters, bombs designed to penetrate hardened targets buried underground, led to a decline in the use of fortifications.

Cheyenne Mountain Complex is an underground bunker used by North American Aerospace Defense Command. Cheyenne Mountain is an example of a mid-20th century fortification built deep in a mountain.

The Ozama Fortress in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is recognized by UNESCO for being the oldest military construction of European origin in the Americas.

Castles are fortifications which are regarded as being distinct from the generic fort or fortress in that they are a residence of a monarch or noble and command a specific defensive territory.

Krak des Chevaliers

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Medieval castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world.

Krak des Chevaliers overlooking the surrounding area.

Position of the Krak des Chevaliers within the County of Tripoli.

Artist's rendering of Krak des Chevaliers as seen from the northeast. From Guillaume Rey, Étude sur les monuments de l'architecture militaire des croisés en Syrie et dans l'île de Chypre (1871).

Cutaway section of the Krak from south to north

The area between the inner and outer walls is narrow and was not used for accommodation.

The east end of the castle's barrel-vaulted chapel

The south face of the inner ward with its steep glacis

Smoke coming from the castle in August 2013, during the Syrian Civil War

Plan of Krak des Chevaliers from Guillaume Rey Étude sur les monuments de l'architecture militaire des croisés en Syrie et dans l'île de Chypre (1871). North is on the right.

Sit tibi copia, sit sapientia, formaque detur; Inquinat omnia sola superbia, si comitetur.
Translation:
You may have bounty, you may have wisdom, you may be granted beauty; pride alone defiles all [these things] if it accompanies [them].

Remains of medieval frescoes in the castle's chapel

The Hospitallers began rebuilding the castle in the 1140s and were finished by 1170 when an earthquake damaged the castle.

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

Curtain wall (fortification)

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Reconstruction of the 9th-century BC defensive walls around ancient Tel Lachish in modern Israel.

The 12th-century curtain wall of the Château de Fougères in Brittany in northern France, showing the battlements, arrowslits and overhanging machicolations.

Two sections of the 16th-century curtain wall around Berwick-upon-Tweed, at the eastern end of the Anglo-Scottish border.

A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town.

Manor house

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Historically the main residence of the lord of the manor.

Markenfield Hall in North Yorkshire, a 14th-century manor house with moat and gatehouse

Ightham Mote, a 14th-century moated manor house in Kent, England

A 19th-century main building of the Hatanpää Manor in Tampere, Finland

Leeds Manor House Blue Plaque, Scarborough Hotel

Château de Trécesson, a 14th-century manor-house in Morbihan, Brittany

Warmond House (Huis te Warmond), the manor house for the Hoge Heerlijkheid of Warmond in the Netherlands

Virginia House, Garden Side (no title) (16835896132)

Schloss Machern (Machern Castle) near Leipzig is an example of a typical manor house, it evolved from a medieval castle which was originally protected by a water moat and later was converted into a baroque-style castle with typical architectural features of the period and one of the first English-style parks in Germany.

They existed in most European countries where feudalism existed, where they were sometimes known as castles, palaces, mansions, and so on.

A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals to allow for the launch of arrows or other projectiles from within the defences.