Interesting Things You Might Not Have Known
The Hidden Secrets of Castle Spiral Stairwells: Our First Fun Fact Friday!
It is easy to assume that the dark, cramp and uneven stone work of the spiral staircases of the Medieval Castles were simply the result of crude stonemason workmanship, but in reality, like many aspects of these imposing stone structures, they were carefully thought-out and intentional features, and the effects of them continue into our modern culture.
For example, modern spiral staircases are commonly designed to go up in a clockwise direction. This appears to relate to the spiral staircases found in castles, which were intentionally designed to have clockwise ascending stairs. The reason behind it was purely defensive. If any enemy managed to breach the walls of a castle, the next attack would be to climb the towers and invade the castle further. As the towers stairs ran clockwise, and that most people were right-handed, it meant that the attacking party had no room to swing their sword. But if the defenders came down the stairs their right arm would be on the outer edge of the staircase and they could wield their swords.
In some castles, you may find one tower that intentionally did have an anti-clockwise ascending staircase This would have been added just in case the defenders lost and had to recapture the castle, as they would have been familiar with the castle, they would have known about this unique tower and the advantage of using it.
This ‘insider’ knowledge is also why many steps in a castle’s staircase are irregular; that some steps were intentionally made randomly shallower or steeper. A defender would have had climbed stairs on a regular basis and would have instinctively become familiar with the steps and naturally anticipated the intentional odd steps – but an attacker would not have been, and would have stumbled – a dangerous thing to do in a swordfight.
What hidden secrets are you going to imagine in Your Castle Structure when building with Kardtects Building Cards?
Be sure to tune in every Friday for Fun Fact Friday to learn these fascinating and interesting tidbits! And SUBSCRIBE to our Newsletter for more fun, games, special offers, and all things Kardtects!