The siege tower or belfry was a wooden tower used during a siege by the
attackers to get men over the walls of the castle. Siege towers were
built on site using local materials and would have
only been constructed if the siege was a lengthy one or the castle was
important and the attackers wanted to take the castle undamaged.
The tower had wheels so that it could be pushed up to the castle walls
and a drawbridge at the top would be lowered when the tower was in place.
To protect the tower from fire it would have been covered with animal hides.
The inside of the tower had several levels with arrow loops from which attackers
could fire at the defenders. The levels would also hold the many attackers until the
tower was in position. Good siege towers were taller than the walls they were
attacking allowing the attackers to fire down into castle itself.
Many castles were surrounded by water filled moats and ditches so before the tower could be
moved up to the walls the moat or ditch had to be filled in with rubble.
Click here to use a siege tower
to storm a castle. You will need to install the VRML plugin first by clicking on
the Cortona icon below.
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The VRML plugin from Cortona is required to display the tower.
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