Medieval Information

A medieval gatehouse was an entry point into the castle. Castles with Moats would very frequently have a gatehouse with a bridge attached to it for the sole purpose of making it more defendable against foreign invaders.

Gatehouses were built with many different materials. Wood was used at first, but later many other building materials were employed. Metals were used widely and this made gatehouses very strong against spears and arrows.

Bigger castles had up to two or three gatehouses in order to provide a much greater defense. In case one fell, the castle still had one or two remaining.

Gatehouses were also specially good for setting up traps inside of them. They would have small holes inside the walls for pike men to kill the invaders who came into the gatehouse - this was yet an additional way to defend a castle since the invaders were scared to enter a gatehouse after its fall.

In order to destroy a gatehouse, however, siege weapons were commonly employed. Battering Rams and other attacking weapons were commonly used in order to effectively destroy a castle's gatehouse.

When a moat separated the attackers from the defenders, the bridge would be another door for greater protection. Unfortunately, bridges were almost invariantly made of wood and thus; prone to fire. What attackers did in order to besiege a castle with a moat was to fill it with another material such as sand or wood for the attackers to finally destroy it with siege equipment.

Nevertheless, when a castle had a very good gatehouse what invaders sought more was to simply destroy another part of the castle's wall or let the defenders starve to death - this of course was the most common way to do it - but unfortunately, highly ineffective when in a hurry.