Attacking and defending a castle

Castles were built for powerful people to live in and stay safe.

In this article you can learn:

How people kept castles safe
How enemies attacked castles
Features of Caerlaverock Castle
The impact of cannons on castle building

This resource is suitable for Castles topics for primary school learners.

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Find out how people kept castles safe and how enemies attacked castles.

When did attacking and defending castles begin?

In the 1100s, King David I of Scotland wanted to let everyone know that he was the most powerful man in the land. Building lots of large, strong castles was a great way of showing everyone that he was boss.

There were lots of families or clans that didn’t want him as their king so they came up with clever ways to attack his castles.

The King’s castle builders had to keep coming up with new ideas to make their castles stronger and safer. This continued for hundreds of years after King David's reign.

How to defend a castle

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Building up high
Building a castle up high made it difficult for enemies to get to the castle. Some castles were built on natural rocks and cliffs like Edinburgh Castle (above). Some other castles, like Duffus Castle in Moray, were built on man-made mounds.
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Tall towers
Strong towers were added to curtain walls to watch out for enemies. At first, castle towers were square but they were replaced with round towers which were stronger and harder to destroy. This photo shows the towers at Eglinton Castle in Ayrshire.
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Battlements
Battlements were walls on the roof of a castle. They had higher walls, called merlons, with lower gaps between, called crenels. Defenders would use crossbows to shoot arrows through the crenels,and then hide behind the higher merlons. This photo shows the battlements at Blackness Castle in Linlithgow.
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Arrow slits
Arrow slits, like the very thin holes you can see at Hermitage Castle near Hawick (above), were very narrow windows that defenders could shoot arrows out of. It was very hard for attackers to aim an arrow and shoot into such a narrow hole. Over time, many of these windows were changed to allow guns or cannons to be fired through the slits. These were known as gun loops.
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Moat
Some castles were surrounded by deep ditches called moats to stop attackers getting in. Some moats were filled with water, like Caerlaverock Castle near Dumfries (above). Attackers would have to swim or row across the moats to get to the castle.
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Drawbridge
A drawbridge was a bridge which could be pulled up to stop enemies getting in. Drawbridges usually went over a ditch or a moat. The drawbridge at Threave Castle near Castle Douglas (above) went over a moat flooded with water from the River Dee.
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Portcullis
A portcullis was a heavy metal gate at the entrance of a castle. The defenders could lower the portcullis to trap any attackers at the gatehouse and stop others getting in. This portcullis is at Edinburgh Castle (above).
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Dungeons
A castle dungeon was a room used to hold prisoners, usually underground. St Andrews Castle has a famous dungeon which is shaped like a bottle.

Defending Caerlaverock Castle

Look at this photo of Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfries and Galloway. It is a ruin now but can you spot which parts of the castle made it harder to attack?

Click on the labels to get more information about each feature.

With help from pupils from Brownhall and Caerlaverock Primary Schools, find out more about the history of Caerlaverock Castle.

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A film about the history of Caerlaverock Castle near Dumfries.

How did cannons bring the time of castles to an end?

Horizontal gunloops at Blackness Castle — Image caption,
At Blackness Castle near the Firth of Forth, you can still see the gunloops that cannons shot through.

From the early 1400s, gunpowder and cannons changed the way castles were designed.

For example, narrow arrow slits were replaced with wider gunloops. These allowed defenders to shoot cannon balls out of the castle towards the attackers.

Attackers used cannons too. Cannons eventually became so powerful that castles couldn't defend against them any more and the time of castles came to an end.