A report on Castle

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

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

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.

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.

Type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders.

- Castle

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Turret (highlighted in red) attached to a tower on a baronial building in Scotland

Turret (architecture)

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Corbelled corner turrets at Newark Castle, Port Glasgow

The turrets of Balhousie Castle in Perth, Scotland

Turret of the old fort guarding Havana harbour, Cuba

A turret on a building in Denver, Colorado

Turret at the Het Schip housing in the Amsterdam School style

Bastion terrace on Belém Tower with its Moorish bartizan turrets and cupolas from the north-west

In architecture, a turret (from Italian: torretta, little tower; Latin: turris, tower) is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle.

Pumhart von Steyr, a 15th-century very large-calibre cannon

Medieval technology

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Technology used in medieval Europe under Christian rule.

Medieval port crane for mounting masts and lifting heavy cargo in the former Hanse town of Gdańsk

A wine press used in the medieval period to crush grapes.

Portrait of a Man in a Turban, oil painting by Jan van Eyck (1433)

Scheme of a sternpost-mounted medieval rudder

Reading Saint Peter with eyeglasses (1466)

Knights Templar playing chess, Libro de los juegos (1283)

Jousting armor commissioned by Maximilian I in 1494

Ceramic grenades that were filled with Greek fire, surrounded by caltrops, 10th–12th century, National Historical Museum, Athens, Greece

Cranked rack-and-pinion device for cocking a crossbow (c. 1493)

The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques (Gothic architecture, medieval castles), and agriculture in general (three-field crop rotation).

The castle keep in use as part of the county gaol (jail) in the 18th century. (A later work said to be based on an 1819 original)

Gloucester Castle

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1610 map showing position of Gloucester Castle on the River Severn, with Gloucester Cathedral (centre, until 1541 Gloucester Abbey) to its north-east

The Gloucester tabula set was found during archaeological investigation of the Norman castle in 1983.

Gloucester Castle was a Norman-era royal castle situated in the city of Gloucester in Gloucestershire, England.

Great Tower of Tattershall Castle showing the three separate entrances

Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire

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Tattershall Castle is a castle in Tattershall, Lincolnshire, England, about 12 miles (19 km) north east of Sleaford.

Fort Senneville

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One of the outlying forts of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, built by the Canadiens of New France near the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in 1671.

Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, within the Island of Montreal.

Colonel Benedict Arnold in 1776, the year he destroyed the fort.

A large stone windmill, which doubled as a watch tower, was built on a hill by late 1686 and featuring machicolation and other castle-like features.

Treadwheel crane

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Wooden, human powered hoisting and lowering device.

Reconstruction of a Roman treadwheel crane, the Polyspaston, at Bonn, Germany

Pieter Bruegel's construction of The Tower of Babel (Bruegel) featuring a double treadwheel crane

Single treadwheel crane working from top of the building

Reconstructed gantry crane of Bruges operated by two lateral treadwheels

Tower crane at the inland harbour of Trier from 1413

A treadwheel crane or 'squirrel cage' at Guédelon Castle.

It was primarily used during the Roman period and the Middle Ages in the building of castles and cathedrals.

Toll castle

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A toll castle (Zollburg) is a castle that, in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era, guarded a customs post and was intended to control it.

Fort Longueuil

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Stone fort that stood in Longueuil, in Quebec, Canada from 1690 to 1810.

It is one of the only buildings in Canada that could ever be considered a castle (fortified residence for a noble), and out of those buildings it most resembles the castles of Europe.

Bodiam Castle

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Bodiam Castle was built on a fresh site.

Engraving of 1737 by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, showing Bodiam Castle from the northeast

A watercolour from 1906 by Wilfrid Ball showing the overgrown ruins and neglected moat of the castle. After being partially dismantled, Bodiam was left as a picturesque ruin.

Bodiam Castle was described as "an old soldier's dream house" in the 1960s, although its defences are now considered more ornamental than practical.

Plan of Bodiam Castle. Sections of wall that no longer stand are included. Key: A. Household apartments, B. Chapel, C. Chamber, D. Great chamber, E. Lord's hall, F. Buttery, G. Pantry, H. Kitchen, I. Retainer's hall, J. Retainer's kitchen, K. Possible Anteroom (on some plans K, L1 and L2 are shown as one room, on some two and others three), L1. Possible service rooms, L2. Possible stables, M. North-east tower, N. East tower, O. South-east tower, P. Postern tower, Q. South-west tower, R. West tower, S. North-west tower (and prison), T. Gatehouse (with guard rooms to left and right), U. Inner causeway, V. Outer Barbican, W. Outer causeway.

Bodiam Castle is a 14th-century moated castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England.

Castle town

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Map of the Citadel of Saigon (Bagua citadel) before 1835.

A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle.