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The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site. In medieval designs of castle and town, the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult.
[3] [page needed] In German-speaking countries, many castles had double curtain walls with a narrow enclosure outside the main walls, acting as a killing ground between them, referred to as a zwinger. The outermost wall was a Zwingermauer or type of low mantlet wall. These were often added at vulnerable points like the gate of a castle or town ...
The gatehouse providing entry from the outer defences to the castle proper was erected by King James IV, and was probably completed around 1506. [76] It originally formed part of a Forework, extending as a curtain wall across the whole width of Castle Hill. At the centre is the gatehouse itself, which now stands to less than half its original ...
The shield wall of Stahleck Castle. A shield wall, also shield-wall or Schildmauer, refers to the highest and strongest curtain wall, or tower of a castle that defends the only practicable line of approach to a castle built on a mountain, hill or headland.
The enceinte may be laid out as a freestanding structure or combined with buildings adjoining the outer walls. [4] The enceinte not only provided passive protection for the areas behind it, but was usually an important component of the defence with its wall walks (often surmounted by battlements), embrasures and covered firing positions.
Plan of the outer and inner baileys of Alt-Trauchburg Castle (Germany). The Graben is the neck ditch, and to its right is the inner bailey, accessible over a wooden bridge. Topoľčany Castle with an inner and an outer bailey. The inner bailey or inner ward of a castle is the strongly fortified enclosure at the heart of a medieval castle. [1]
The city walls were often connected to the fortifications of hill castles via additional walls. Thus the defenses were made up of city and castle fortifications taken together. Several examples of this are preserved, for example in Germany Hirschhorn on the Neckar, Königsberg and Pappenheim, Franken, Burghausen in Oberbayern and many more.
The first people to visit Castle Hill were probably hunters and gatherers of the Mesolithic age, camping amongst the forests which at that time covered the land. In the Neolithic and Bronze Age, there appears to have been widespread travel or trade along the river valleys connecting the Yorkshire Wolds, the Peak District and the Mersey and Ribble estuaries.