Principles of castle design, Honorguard epic tour and analysis

[Music] get out of this greatings I'm shad and this is honor guard a fictional castle of my own design that is based on the many many specific and significant design principles of historical castles and in this video I'm going to be sharing with you what those elements are because I tell you what guys nothing has been put on this castle by accident I mean I'm moderator I designed it from scratch everything has been designed with intention and reason also to let you know I've made kind of a small cinematic featurette of the castle as it were that I've already uploaded on my channel I'll put a link here and it simply features the castle and all of its elements while having text appear on screen identifying what parts are what it's a really great watch if you haven't seen it so I do encourage you go check it out the first thing that I want to say about on the guard is that it's kind of my tribute to functional effective historical castles and the beauty and majesty of fantasy castles because it when you look at the design there are actually two prominent elements on this design that you wouldn't actually find on historical Castle though that is a bit of a caveat because depending on the time period you can find similar elements though you wouldn't really call them classical castle elements the two parts that I'm referring to are actually the two towers it's the central tower here with its primary feature window and also the massive tower off to the side the donjon historically it was very rare to have towers of such incredible size though that does seem to be certain castle towers that came close in size but you'll notice that their design is actually a little different the design of the donjon on honor guard is very much in tribute to the classic fantasy castle giant tower now that's the same with the feature window on the secondary tower if you would actually take away that feature window and the donjon the castle itself the main keep actually becomes very very historically authentic and the other element in this is that I actually feel though it would be very difficult that it would have been possible to build those three elements feature window and her giant Don John in the medieval period with maybe one or two slight tweaks to make it a little bit more feasible the other thing about the central tower that I want to point out to you is that it actually is rather impractical in its design it makes the internal layout of the castle a little bit wonky because there needs to be internal support so if you have a look at the internal walls you'll notice that underneath the central tower the walls actually have a double thickness and that's because there the walls need to be stepped in a bit to actually support a central tower because the central tower is a little bit smaller than the actual external walls of the keep around it this is actually an awkward design whereas in a historical context of someone was wanting to build something for pure functionality this central tower wouldn't have been considered because it's too impractical the thing is though it looks really really good it creates this kind of silhouette and feature of the castle and so depending on period if you go into a bit late in the medieval period it does become a little bit more feasible because castle design started to be structured around aesthetics as well as function so with that element considered the central tower actually isn't as unhistorical as you might assume but it's very valuable for me to point out to you the impracticality of it which also speaks to the reason why you don't see so many impractical designs like this in the medieval period this is what honor guard would have most likely looked like if it was actually built in the medieval period for pure functionality but like I said I designed this castle to be a slightly less of a tribute to the beautiful classic fantasy castles in fact I wanted to kind of merge the two pure functional historical design with some kind of fantasy castle design flares here and there but not going too far keeping it very grounded in practicality a significant thing to point out regarding historical castles is that many of them were whitewashed not all of them and of course it's a bit of an extravagance but if people had the money to do it well it seems that they would there's a reason why the Tower of London is all so known as the White Tower because when you look at it you might think well that doesn't really look white well back in the medieval period it was and of course the White Tower isn't the only example for this reason I was actually tempted to give on a guide a whitewash as well and I would have except for the fact that this castle actually has a bit of a background story I'm a writer and I'm actually working on the final edits for a fantasy novel I'll be publishing within the near future but to learn how to write I wrote many books previous to it and the setting that most of my writing endeavors was based in was of course based on the medieval period and after writing the equivalent of seven or eight books the last one I wrote actually was half decent though I still would want to rewrite it if I ever tried to do something serious with it but the home of the main character is on a guard this castle here this is one of the reasons why I wanted to design it was because I want to design the castle that my story was based on and so there are some features on this castle that actually based on the story and characters who live in it and one of those things that a family that originally built the castle and living it to this day actually very nightly with a strong military history they're more about practicality over appearance and the ancestors that build it and the people who currently live in it don't care about outward appearance and they see making their Castle glow white to be a frivolous extravagance that doesn't have any real value but this is what on a guard would look like if it had a full whitewash on the outer walls remember though not all castles had this whitewash I don't think if you are ever designing a castle that you have to either think about a context and make the decision for yourself the next thing that I want to point out is that if you have seen the little video featurettes that I've made of honor guard you might notice some differences in the castle I'm presenting here with the version of honor guard I presented in the featurette and yes I've made a couple of small maybe not small also you could even consider them significant upgrades here and there and it's worth it that I point these things out to you for you to see the types of things that you should try and consider when designing a castle the most obvious difference is the addition of walls connecting the outer gate house this was something that I was considering on and off throughout the design and first I thought that they weren't completely necessary but then after further consideration I thought no the defensive advantages are just too great so I added these walls in the addition of ramparts and battlements surrounding the pathway through the gate houses creates a corridor of death anyone who is running along or tries to break through the gate houses is just going to get destroyed on some really serious levels this design element of having to raise walls on either side to a entrance or pathway through a gatehouse always stood out to me when I noticed it on historical castles as being profoundly effective and also just deadly for anyone trying to assault this castle and I've described them as kill zones corridors of deaths and for a very long time there hasn't been an English name for it but my viewers who are particularly informed have actually pointed out that there is a German name for this design feature and these are reviewers that pointed it out on my video featurette and even viewers that pointed out on earlier videos but it's a hard name to get remember but now I finally remembered and I've recorded it and I will share it with you so you can know this design element as a significant and very cool feature to add if you want to add it and now we have a name that we can refer to it it is called a finger and it's a pretty awesome design elements one of the things that concern me with the original version of honor guard is that if the enemy was particularly committed they could actually build an earthen ramp to avoid a first gatehouse and that was a bit of a problem I didn't like that they still would have had to deal with the second and third and fourth gatehouse but it still meant that they could just go around the first one so with adding a fully fortify this finger here it really does make trying to assault the primary entrance to this castle suicidal beyond belief this of course raises the question of how on earth could you possibly take a castle as heavily fortified as honor guard well that's a full subject for another video I fully intend to make that video but I just address it fully here I'll just say it's difficult there are certain techniques like building in Agoura which is a giant massive grip like an earth and dirt ramp up those but that requires a massive army and oh yeah there's a lot of different kind of techniques and other things that are not always effective but they can be a dependence on ya and uyghurs were more common in the ancient world anyway they weren't really prominent in the medieval sieges some of the other little additions and improvements you'll notice I actually had access to the upper ramparts of the primary gatehouse that was an oversight on my behalf on the previous showcase of honor guard I've double the size of the internal granary I've added a massive trebuchet on the internal Bailey which is set aside ready for use if the castle ever comes under siege and of course it has wheels to be redeployed to face any direction where the enemy might have April you--she with the intent to threaten the castle the massive problem with that is on a guards elevation its position makes tribute a far less effective and attacking it and with the additional elevation the trebuchet with in honor guards walls is going to have higher range than anyone trying to attack it and the only way to overcome that is to try and build a massive one but you know I decided to spoil myself and give on a guard basically the largest tribute that the medieval period was basically capable of building this trebuchet here is warwolf equivalent in size in fact it might even be a little bit bigger most medieval trebuchet is were half as big as the one you see here which gives on a guard a very significant advantage in destroying enemy siege equipment that might be employed against it I added a door and access to the ramparts above the Great Hall another oversight there this next one is an interesting one you see upon further a study in consideration of the design I had made I was looking at the entry hall and that's basically a nicer name for a kill zone in the castles design it's a fake entrance as soon as the enemy busts through the outer portcullis and gate they find themselves in a room with another door and portcullis behind it and above the entry hall is a guardhouse with murder holes right above terrain death on anyone caught right there while they're trying to get through the secondary door but on the previous design if on a guard the floor was made out of wood and I was thinking you know if the enemy was really worried to determine they can get access and just drop through the floor and that means they would get into the servants quarters and from the servants quarters they could then access other parts of the castle that's a problem so to fix it I actually removed the servants quarters that was directly underneath it opening up the guard room that was underneath those servants quarters and then added in a vaulted ceiling which enabled me to put a stone floor in the entry hall and that means no one's going to be chopping through that floor with some axes I did this as well with the roof above the Treasury if you want to make a Treasury secure you don't want a timber roof above it that's how I can just chop through with an axe so vaulted ceiling stone roof fully encased no one's going to be breaking into the Treasury with any amount of ease and I just want to point out that the Treasury you see here in honor guard is a very fantasy depiction of medieval Treasury I could see the king himself having you know a couple of decent chests full of coin or whatever currency they hold in the kingdom but most of the wealth for the Kings and the Lords of the medieval period was actually held in their own resources how many livestock they had sheep cattle their land being the big one also any number of resources whether that be in spices Goods trade food stocks and I probably will amend the honor guard treasury to be something a little bit more realistic because for the family live in it and the setting at most they will probably would only have a chest maybe half full of cold half the time and they would be feeling quite flush if that chest ever got full most of the wealth that the family would own would be in their goods and livestock that they're able to grow and raise on their own land and the amount of supplies that I've put in the storerooms in honor guard is enough to be considered ridiculously wealthy easily worth a few chests of gold by themselves but the value is held in the it's being stored and protected it's kind of difficult to put castles in categories this is kind of a continuing study that I'm doing to try and make a more comprehensive list of castle categories it's not complete yet and so it's not finished I can't make a video about it but out of the categories that I have learned so far on regard falls into one of them and it is that of a concentric castle and that is when a castle has an additional outer wall that is very close in line to the secondary wall right behind it it means that both walls can be employed in defense against anyone trying to attack the castles even the soldiers Manning the secondary wall they can still fire on people attacking the first wall it is a very effective castle design in fact some people actually claim it to be the most effective castle design and what you'll notice about the two lines of defense is that the outer walls crenellations do not have those wonderful things that we know and love the reason being is that they're not actually needed no enemy can get so close to the first wall that they would duck underneath the line of fire of those defending the wall therefore there's actually no need for machicolations when there's no need you don't need to put them in because they are more extravagant and more difficult to build but if anyone breaks that first line of defense and gets within the outer bailey well they then can get right up close to the secondary wall so close in fact that they can get underneath the line of fire of the defenders so in those situations yes you need machicolations of course there are many cases on historical castles where machicolations would have been useful but they're not there so don't think you have to add them in they're just very useful when they are in the position where they're useful makes sense the outermost wall serves as a retaining wall to the ground level behind it this means that the walls can't really be knocked down because if those outer walls are knocked down well there's dirt and stone right behind it which is as much a barrier as the wall itself the pathway that anyone has to follow to get access into the central Bailey has very sharp corners and turns this is advantageous in preventing anyone trying to bring in battering rams all the gate houses are fixed with multiple portcullises to trap any enemies that are able to break through the first portcullis and then rain down death upon them through murder holes on the inside the gate houses zinger and internal walls are all segmented from one another which means if one section of wall happens to be taken by an enemy they don't have access to all the other parts of the walls they're actually blocked off by the towers at each major point or Junction the walls that have internal facing battlements are on a lower elevation to walls behind it which means if the enemy ever takes any wall that does have internal facing battlements they can't actually be employed in the defence of the enemy that has taken them because the higher elevation that the defenders would be on means that they can shoot over those internal facing battlements crenellations are meant to be employed at a higher elevation to anyone that you're trying to use them against they lose their defensive value if they're on a lower elevation to people attacking you you'll notice that the walls on the internal Bailey do not have inside facing crenulations which means if any section of these walls get taken there are no barriers to protect them from people counter attacking them from other sections of walls towers or even a top four key and unless they were able to take a section of wall that has a stairwell leading down into the Bailey they can't really get off of them unless they bring their own ladders this is why there is a bit of stonework jutting out behind each tower on the inner wall and the doors that lead into the tower I can of course be barred off from the inside because that is how you walk from one wall section to another through the actual towers a castle comes equipped with most of the features that you want in a castle that I could think of there is a large stables with individual stalls for the horses a soldiers mess is above it that can also function as a type of Inn for any visitors who are not of high enough station to have a room within the castle itself and of course within the soldiers mess there are all the amenities needed such as kitchens and toilets there is a soldier's barracks are fully equipped blacksmith shelters to store supplies and firewood for the winter animal pen with a shelter for the animals as well there is no garden attached the castle and that is the result of the nature of the family who live in it first of all the standard sizes of most Castle Bailey's were not large enough to grow crops of any significant volume that would sustain them farmland usually cultivated outside the castle and if there are any gardens within the castle walls that is for the enjoyment and use of the family who live in it not necessarily for growing food and if it is to grow stuff this would be herbs and a couple of fruit trees one of the comments that came up in my video featurette of honor guard was the fact that the granaries were located towards the center part of the bailey and many people felt it would be safer if the granaries are actually sitting right up against the secondary wall to give them protection from bombardment that is a very true and sound principle and there is nothing wrong with doing that I chose not to do it because I wanted the granaries to be over a large enough size which meant having height and because these granary specifically are so tall placing them against the outer wall would mean the peaks of their roof but actually he's sticking up a considerable portion above the wall itself which means the walls wouldn't actually be providing full cover for these granaries indeed by having the granaries more centrally located from the point of view of anyone trying to assault the castle they now actually can't even see the granary from their position this of course would make it much more difficult for them to pinpoint and try and bombard the granaries which are located on the inside section of the internal Bailey but of course due to the elevation of honor guards position no assaulting siege engine would actually be outer launch projectiles amber bard the internal bailey without being in range of the defenders trebuchet and even if the defenders didn't have attribution because of the elevation it would be very hard to have a trebuchet assault on a guard that would not be in range to the defenders arrow fire the granary within the internal bailey is actually there to serve the soldiers and keep their supplies the main supplies and food stores for the county which honor guard reigns over and for the family who live in the castle are all kept within the internal storerooms of the castle itself the tiltyard is located within the internal walls of the bailey for the convenience of the family all the sons are expected to be effectively trained knights ready to serve the king whenever he needs and they have an honorable history a valiant service laid down by their forefathers so having a fully equipped tiltyard right outside their front door is very convenient for them for their daily training honor guards Bailey is actually a very high traffic communal part of the village that sits around about it in fact the soldiers mess is actually regarded as the best tavern in the region a massive advantage of having multiple gate houses and a segmented design and defense is that if any enemy ever manages to sneak inside the castle he would have to raise eight portcullises and lower three drawbridges to let the enemy in and these things aren't quiet raising one portcullis and lowering one bridge will definitely be noisy enough to alert the garrison that would be on guard duty during the night and just wake up the other soldiers who are asleep in the barracks and that was just raising one portcullis and lowering one drawbridge let alone the other twelve bridges and portcullises that need to be opened up to allow any enemy inside in fact so effective is this design that you can actually open one gatehouse and while their person entering the castle is going to the secondary guard house the first gate house can be closed while the second one is opened meaning that there is never at one point an open pathway into the inside part of the castle you can have several gates closed completely at every portion in which someone is entering the castle all the way to get access to the key so even trying to catch the castle while its doors are open becomes impossible with this type of design it wasn't uncommon for there to be a dedicated chapel built seperate to the key yet located within the internal Baili of a castle you'll notice that there is no external chapel within honor guards Bailey because the chapel is actually located within the castle itself now let's move on to the principles I considered when designing the key this section isn't going to be a discourse on the standard elements that you should include inside your castles design I'm going to be making a dedicated video on that very subject I'm going to be sharing those design elements I considered when designing this keep and its internal layout we'll start at the top and work our way down I am really pleased with the design of the donjon it just has this classic fantasy feel to it and this beautiful balcony which would just give the most magnificent view now in terms of function honor guard is actually built as a defensive out person kind of watchtower for a new threat that arises within the kingdom in the context of its history story and background it's just that the newly appointed Ward who was actually formerly a soldier that fought in a civil uprising I think that we'll get into the details found a massive ruin in this secluded and as of yet unsettled land which provided all the stone needed to build this castle that cut down costs significantly but one of the important features of this castle is the watchtower function it needed a very large field of view and that's the actual reasoning behind having this tomjohn there are windows facing every single direction and the location in which the threat it can come from is pointed directly where the balcony is faced towards the design was rather tricky because I wanted to make it as feasible or possible to be built in real life and I was concerned about the massive amount of weight that would be sitting on the corbels that are supporting this extension if I was to build this castle just for pure functionality I would not have extended the uppermost floor because the only purpose for this is aesthetics because it looks really really cool there's no functional knee to have machicolations or a poor board supported wall at this height and elevation but I really really wanted that look and that creates a couple of problems the massive roof that sits on it is sitting on this stone wall and then on corbels the weight of the roof will actually be trying to push the outer wall that sitting on these cobbles outwards even further so the way that I fix this and I feel it should work is by adding in internal buttresses which would serve as kind of clamps and weights to pull the wall back in and hopefully make it more stable that's what these sections inside the uppermost floor of the dungeon are for actually they're for architectural stability the weight of these buttresses are situated directly over the primary supporting stone wall underneath you see there's a lot of things to consider when designing a castle and I really have to say these finer points of architectural design would have flown right over my head if I actually didn't work for a construction firm and learnt some important principles about structural stability and designing homes houses buildings one of the things that I'm kind of proud about the out would look and aesthetic of the donjon is that the outward windows are actually in diagonal line from one another you might think that's obvious because that's just the line of the internal stairs curving around but no if the internal stairs actually made as close as what these windows are there would be no landings or room in between one set of stairs to the other in between the floors when you go up one flight of stairs you need a flat portion for the door to the room on that floor before the stairs continue to go upwards this means that the windows that follow the internal stairwell are actually placed too far from one another but by paying attention to the size of the landings in between each flight of stairs I've actually made a repeating pattern which gives us this external look and the way I do that is by putting a second window on the opposite side of the window that's situated where the landing is on each floor and when I'm talking about the landing it's the landing outside the room of each tower floor and so it's actually a secondary window on the opposite side that actually places the window on the outside in this diagonal line I love the look of a massive feature window I think it's one of their nicer elements of the classic fantasy Disney castles and that you'll notice that look at the fair Disney castles you'll notice this big beautiful central window well of course I wanted that as well but there was a problem when you make a massive window like that their window usually cannot cut between floors if you have a really tall window you need a really tall roof above it and then you just have a massive room on the inside but I solve this by segmenting the window into three parts still looks like a big stretched large window but the three segments of the window actually the three internal floors of the upper portion of the central tower and so each internal room of this upper section actually has a portion of that massive large feature window as the primary window and of course these rooms are of the proper size so instead of forcing me to have one massive internal room from the feature window I get three appropriately sized rooms as a result this effect of the window being segmented into three sections but still looking like one large feature window this design element is something I'm particularly proud of and of course two of the rooms have their own dedicated fireplaces as well making the rooms very functional and livable and my goodness the glorious view you would have added them that would be wonderful this large room directly adjacent to the ballroom is actually kind of the sitting room so while people don't like dancing and having a fun in the ballroom tables and chairs will be arranged in this section for either dining conversation or whatever they want more than one person actually questioned me why I put the ballroom on the top level after watching my video feature read of honor guard and there's a very important reason architectural stability the room is simply too big for a whole floor to spin it's full size and length that especially if that floor needs to support people furniture and wall divisions to make separate room this is some important principles of engineering to consider here because if a beam is spanning to greater distance it'll start to sag unless of course there's a support pillow underneath propping it up but then you're gonna have support pillars right in the middle of your ballroom and for a ballroom you want it completely wide and open in fact the square portion to keep is so large that I've actually added a large internal stone wall that runs up right through the center and then the central stone wall is a main support for the really wide open timber floor of the ballroom so the central stone wall is actually quite important and I would cut the ballroom in half if I place the ballroom on the same level as the Great Hall and I could have put it where the Great Hall currently is located but that means I'd have to reposition where the Great Hall is located like maps where the chapel is and it wouldn't be as big as I want it to be I played with the idea of putting in a massive archway in the middle of this central stone wall to open up the Great Hall if it was on a lower level and there would just be way too much weight on that arch that I just feel it wouldn't be completely stable this meant the very best location of the ballroom is actually on the uppermost level of the square portion of the main key and then above the ballroom itself it just needs a roof that is capable of supporting its own weight not additional people not additional walls or furniture or anything like that just a roof that can support its own weight and absolutely in the medieval period they could make grooves of that size that's that's not a problem and the cool thing is with exposed beams and end up looking really really cool and this is what the roof of the ballroom looks like from the inside so yes the ballroom is on the uppermost floor of the main square portion of the keep out of pure necessity but the huge advantage in that is that these beautiful large feature windows then get an awesome view of the country roundabouts public access to the upper ballroom when events are being held is through the main feature stairwell which is located right here although there is access to the stairwell from the main phase rooms those doors are more often locked so when public access is given to the ballroom people just can't walk right on in to the private sections of the castle one of the things my subscribers asked me about when looking at my castle showcase was where are the toilets well I didn't forget them there's actually five toilets in the castle all located in this wall section they are situated one above another and they have called the Garda robes and there's one in the public sections four of the people visiting Castle use and there are guards in the private livable sections both where the bedrooms are and the living rooms are like the salon all the way up to the ballroom itself the Garda robes a position in such a way where with the extra mint that falls down from them all run into the same primary opening within the castle wall that leads down to the cesspit underneath you see I've considered as much as I can in this design and above all the toilets this opening within the castle wall leads all the way up to the roof and serves as the primary drain for the second half of the upper roof and it rains this means that when there is a downpour the water runs down this section cleaning it out all the way into the cesspits and from the cess pit isn't drained that angles down so it can all be gravity fed that runs all the way through the undercroft outside of the castle off the cliff to be disposed of and out of sight out of mind so the cess pit actually has an inbuilt flushing mechanism whenever there's a heavy downpour but of course if there isn't a downpour after a while it is some servants unfortunate job to take some long wooden paddle like things to scoop the poo along the drain and out of the castle this floor is where the main family rooms are located and each room has its own dedicated fireplace as well but it's not to say these are the only rooms you have the uppermost rooms in the central tower which have their own fireplaces as well so those are very comfortable and livable and the views in them is a spectacular and then of course you have all the additional rooms in the donjon all the way up access to the upper rooms of the donjon is actually through this level and this is because those rooms in donjon except the one at the very very top are considered private rooms the donjon rooms underneath this level actually completely cut off and there's no stairwell from this section leading down to the lower donjon rooms it's like the donjon is cut in half access to the lower rooms is from a different section access to the upper rooms is from this floor and there is a very specific reason for that as well which I'll explain a bit further on if the previous floor where the bedrooms are located this floor is where that living rooms are located indeed the main salah now sola I don't know frozen outs salar solar or whatever in the medieval context of a castle is basically the castles living room this is where family hang out and spend most of their relaxed time if they want to spend it inside directly adjacent to the solar is the primary private dining room for the families that live in the castle and adjacent to the dining room is another room located in the donjon tower and you can only get access to this room through the dining room because this is another living relaxing room within the castle there is another very significant room on this level but it is actually separated from the living portions and that is a guard room and have a look there is no door from the living portions to the guard room in fact you can only get access to this guard room from the battlements above it or the secondary guard room fire beneath and you get access to the secondary guard room far beneath through these forward stairwells that run up and down the forward towers on the cusp this guard room here is located directly above the entry room which I talked about before and it has murder holes facing right down where they can rain down death on anyone who gets trapped underneath it is also where the wind Lass's are located for their main drawbridge and the two portcullises that close in the entry hall underneath underneath that level is the primary kind of public section on the castle this is where the Great Hall is located and where court is held with castle and so when quarters held this is where judicial proceedings will be taken place and the citizenry that live around the castle can approach the Lord with any issues that they need to bring to his attention to get to the Great Hall you need a pass through the entry hall which I mentioned is actually a defensive feature in the castle and then you pass through what's kind of like a transitory Hall within the castle from this main hall you can get access to the primary stairwells that lead to the other parts in the castle it can also be used as an overflow feasting hall when the other parts of the castle get too crowded it is from this hall where you can get access to the castles chapel and then you need a pass through another hall to get to the Great Hall this Hall in between the transitory Hall and the Great Hall is kind of like a waiting room for those who want to approach the Lord it too is often used as an overflow section for the larger feasts that are held of course the Lord's table will be located within the Great Hall but you see a massive fireplace there as well because this Hall is also a feature hall that is part of this larger public section you'll see that there's another circular donjon room with no stairwell leading to or from it access to this room is from the main public stairwell and it's a very basic guest room cutting away half of this floor reveals the access that one can get to the keep from the outer walls you will notice that there is no stairwell leading up from this room it only leads down so all the donjon rooms above this section can not be accessed from this entry point in fact this lowered Onderon room is more a part of the outer walls than the actual keep itself there's a doorway leading from this room to the really large stairwell that you've been seeing on every section of the castle as we've been going down there is no access to the stairwell from the inside part of the main key this stairwell is here to provide access to the upper keep battlements from the main central wall below it leads to the battlements behind the main key and there's no access inside they keep itself from these battlements there's a secondary stairwell that leads to the roof of the kiba's well and to the roof and battlements above the grade hall and to the walls on the other side it is the connecting part between the keeps battlements and the walls battlements and of course these doors can all be barred off if a section of wall is taken underneath the more public floor is the servants floor where the main kitchens are located or so the servants dining room and living quarters for those servants who sleep within the castle you'll notice that the servants entrance does not have a windlass or a portcullis but it does have a counterweight drawbridge there's no way to fit in a portcullis because above it will feature windows and the Great Hall and there's no section for the portholes to be raised into and you might think that this is actually a weakness well to fix that there is a room that you need a pass through to get access to the main kitchen and this room has a very nasty and defensible feature our false floor it's made so that if any enemy breaks through their servants entry into the castle floor underneath them will open up causing them to fall to their deaths and once opened there's no way to pass through that section into the main castle it'd be very hard to see them surviving there form the very least that have several broken bones and of course there's a barred door providing access to this bottom and pits just to clean out the dead bodies once the battle is over again there is no access to this lowered donjon room from the servants quarters adjacent this stairwell within the low portion that Don John leads down into the armory and the lower guard room which we see here and you'll notice that there is access to that soldiers stairwell that leads to the upper Keefe battlements right here in the armory it's there so the soldiers Manning the walls can get access to the internal keep armory as well each one of these doors can be secured as well in fact the door leading from the Don John stairwell into the armory is offset to prevent people being able to use battering rams to knock it down if they were able to take that section of the castle wall and then batter down the door to get inside the lower Don John they then will have a very difficult time getting access to the armory this central room here is actually very very duct because there's no windows providing any light at all as a transitory room to block off access to the armory and guard rooms adjacent to it if anyone tries to get to them by the public stairwell just to its side this slower guard room does have two windows that provide light making it more functional and it has a full vaulted ceiling for a stone floor above it and I'm not sure if you've been out to notice what I've done here all the sections that I've shown you up to this point actually shows an internal division within the castle layouts they keeps battlements guard rooms and armory are all separated from the internal livable portions of the castle this means that if any enemy was able to take the portion of castle wall that led in truth to keep there is no access from those sections into the portions of the keep where the Lord and his family are living and they have to fight through section by section just to get access to the other guard rooms where guess what there will be soldiers and guards waiting for them and I did misspeak there is one access points the livable portions of the castle and that is through that primary stairwell right here but you need a bus through several doors to even get there in the first place and this public stairwell is primarily there to lead up to the main ballroom and most of the doors leading through this stairwell from the living quarters are usually locked and barred off as well there is another section on this level that is completely separated from the military parts that we just covered and these are the primary storerooms of the castle underneath that level we just covered is the primary undercroft the undercroft is actually divided into three sections each section can only be accessed by its own dedicated stairwell and there is no door on this level leading from one section to another to get to another section you have to go up the stairwell into the floors above to get access to the stairwell that we to the other portion leading down from the main stairwell you will find the primary dungeon and I made the access point the primary stairwell because when you sentence a prisoner to go to the dungeon you don't want to take him through any of the private or servants quarters or anything like that that is why it's the public stairwell so if you go up that stairwell you will find the ballroom and if you go down well you're gonna find a dungeon the dungeon has individual cells to lock people away and the adjoining room and next to it has a very dark nasty feet show and it is called the oubliette Jubilee yet is a French word I believe and it means the place to be forgotten it's basically a really really deep hole that has no windows no light in that you just throw people in and lock them away and my goodness what a horrible place to be sentenced to oftentimes oubliettes only had a very small access hole into it but to avoid the trouble I just made at a really deep hole that you can throw people in and they're only going to be getting out of there with that is lowered down to them the next section of the undercroft is how you get access to the castles main cistern which is where they store the water and servants will be passing through here regularly to draw up water as needed the main cistern is fed from the upper roof of the castle the water runoff when it rains feeds into drains that leads down right here and of course that the system gets too full there are holes at the upper portion for the water to drain off out into the secondary Bailey oh I actually misspoke the undercroft is divided into four sections not three the third section is the smelly part of the castle it is where you get access to the main cesspits and also the death pit from the servants entry to clean out the bodies that are unfortunate to dine and then of course the final section of the undercroft is the Treasury with its own stairwell access and its own locked door oh my goodness this video and if you stuck with me oh throughout all of it I commend you guys well done but of course I hope did it because you enjoyed it and because there was so much to cover when I said that everything about this castle was done intentionally I really did mean it and covering it all in full detail to give it the just as it deserves requires time but I do feel it was worth it and I hope you have been inspired or learnt a thing or two along the process thank you very much for watching I do truly appreciate it and I hope you've enjoyed I certainly have that my goodness I have to say I'm very proud of this design very happy with how it has turned out this has been honor guard again thank you for watching and I'll see you next time until then [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 906,059

Rating: 4.9550719 out of 5

Keywords: castle, castles, fortress, fortresses, citadel, chateau, design, build, building, machicolations, crenelations, battlements, seige, siege, trebuchet, medieval, history, historical, middle ages, knight, knight's, sword, swords, samurai, katana, tower, top ten, game of thrones, lord of the rings, casterly rock, honorguard, sketchup, model, animation, 3d, dungeons and dragons, rpg, video, game, roleplaying, dnd, d&d, names, type, part, terminology, armor, armour, gatehouse, shiro, japanese, european

Id: sJkXRDKdAcM

Length: 45min 4sec (2704 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018

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