| 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. |