The defensive features that the castle had on the outside were the ditch. This would have being a lot steeper in medieval times. This was a good defensive feature because it stopped the enemy from bringing their weapons close to the outside wall this meant that a battering ram or a bore wouldn’t be able to be used to bring down to the wall. This was a good defensive feature because stops the enemy from bring their throwing engines like their mangonel and trebuchet closer to the castle.
The defensive features that the castle itself had were that the walls were five metres thick and they sloped at the bottom this called the batter. This was a good defensive feature because it meant that a ladder could not be able put against the wall so the enemy were not able to scale the wall and get into the bailey. Also rams bounce off this batter. Another good defensive feature was the timber hoards .These came out form the top of the castles walls and protects the area under them by shoots arrows or dropping missiles through the holes in the in hoards at the enemy below. Rochester castle had a number of weak spots where attackers could enter the castle so this was added as an extra precaution.
The entrance to the castles was on the first floor so attackers had to climb up the stairs to get into the castles forebuilding. This meant attacker couldn’t get rams to the door. If the attacker got the got to the forebuilding thee doors were at a 90 degree so they would not be able to turn the ram around. Here there were two very small windows that the defenders would have fired out of at the enemy. The windows in the castle got winder the further of the ground you got. This was because there was a less danger of attackers climbing in them and getting into the castle. However a castles had, problems one of which was the doorway were made of wood which meant that they could be set on fire and knot down easily. To avoid a metal gill was put in front of the door.
If the enemy managed to get into the castle they still had problem that they needed to overcome. One of this was the stairs because the attackers had to come up the stairs in full armoury and they had to change sword hand from their right hand to the left hand when they were climbing up the stairs because of the way the stairs were designed. This aided the defenders because by the time the attackers had changed their sword back over to their right hand they would have been stab by the defenders.
The castle would become weak in a siege as it did not have its own water supply. Ways that the defenders try to overcome this where by stocking the store room with lots of beer and wine and food .They also made sure that the well had lots of water in it however the well was not connected to its own water supply so the water would run out. Also at this time the all of the corners were square this was a weak point as they could be knocked down by battering rams and throwing machines. They
Could also be undermine which that you dig under the castles and this takes out the wall.
Over all I thing that it would be very hard to attack a castle this is because there were lot of defensive that were very good. I think the best way of attacking a castle would be by putting it under a siege. This was very good because attackers would not lose that many lives and also you that know the defenders would have to give up when they had no more food left. How ever there were problems with this attack this was that it cost a lot of money to put a castle under siege.
Sam Prowse 10JD
