| Keep |
The largest tower or building at a castle, this is the
place where everyone living or working at a castle would have gone too if
the enemy broke over the castle walls. |
| Bailey |
The ground within the walls of a castle, it had many uses
depending upon the time of year. |
| Tower |
These tall buildings are part of the walls, they were
used by archers who would defend the castle using their bows and arrows. |
| Barbican |
The name given to the heavily defended passageway between
the outer and inner gateways of the castle. |
| Ditch |
A deep, wide trench dug all the way around a castle to
keep out attackers, sometimes these ditches were filled with water and
were called motes. |
| Portcullis |
This is a heavy gate made up of bars of strong wood
and/or iron. This gate would be raised up to open it and lowered to close
it, in an emergency the portcullis could be dropped quickly allowing the
spikes on the bottom to dig into the ground making the gate even harder to
break down. |
| Chamber |
An old word for a room, usually a private one like a
bedroom. |
| Garderobe |
An old word for toilet, clothing was often hung in the
garderobe so that the smell would drive off the moths, lice and flees. |
| Chapel |
A place of religious worship within the castle, everyone
at the castle would have said prayers at least once each day. |
| Prison |
A place for keeping prisoners in. Prisoners were only
kept in prison for a short time, usually between capture and trial.
Punishments where then carried out straight away and were usually quite
harsh. |
| Buttery |
The room where the butts were kept, a butt was a large
wooden barrel in which wine or beer was kept. |
| Bake-house |
A room usually next to the kitchen where bread was baked. |
| Kitchens |
The building where all the food eaten at the castle was
prepared and cooked. Meals in castles could sometimes be quite lavish
affairs, so the kitchen employed many people. |
| Scullery |
A room where the pots and pans were cleaned after a meal. |
| Curtain Walls |
This was the name for the wall that went around the
castle's bailey, it was built out of stone and was usually over 2 metres
thick. |
| Motte |
A huge man-made hill on which a castle would have been
built. |
| Draw-bridge |
The bridge that crossed over the ditch at the entrance to
the castle. The word "draw" was the old word for
"pull", so the draw-bridge would have been pulled up to defend
the entrance. |
| Well |
This was a deep shaft or hole dug into the ground on
which the castle stood, the shaft was so deep that it would fill with
water from the surrounding land, this water was used in the castle for
cooking, washing and drinking. |
| Battlements |
Also called castellations, battlements were built on top
of the curtain wall to provide protection for archers and guards who used
the top of the wall as a vantage point. |
| Wall-walk |
The path on the top of the curtain wall, this would have
been patrolled by the guards who were always on the look-out for anyone
attacking the castle. |
