Half tower
Architectural feature
A half tower (sometimes half-tower), open tower, or open-gorged tower (German: Schalenturm, Halbschalenturm or Schanzturm) is a fortified stone tower in an external wall or castle enceinte that is open, or only lightly constructed, at the rear. Towers of this type were used, for example, in city walls. City gates can also be incorporated into a type of half tower.
01Description
Unlike closed towers, which were fully enclosed by walls, half towers were open on the inside, typically the side facing the city or the inner bailey of a castle. On this side, a wooden railing on individual floors stopped people or objects from falling off. Sometimes the open side was sealed with wooden planking or weaker timber framed walls. Towers that are fully open at the top and rear are open towers, whilst those only open on the lower floors (i.e., the top floor is walled and roofed) are partially open towers.
Most half towers were semi-circular in plan, but some were rectangular.
02Examples
- Semi-circular half towers
- Bergerschanzturm in Aachen, Germany
- Endingerturm in Rapperswil, Switzerland
- Haldenturm in Rapperswil
- Karlsturm in Aachen
- Schildturm in Aachen
- Dover Castle, Kent, England
- Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, England
- Orford Castle, Suffolk, England (possible)
- Wehrturm am Gänsbühl in Ravensburg, Germany
City or town wall towers
- Dinkelsbühl, Germany
- Bad Hersfeld, Germany
- Einbeck, Germany
- Freiburg im Üechtland, Switzerland
- Rectangular half towers
- Krichelenturm in Aachen
- Schänzchen in Aachen
- Porte d'Orange in Carpentras, France
Town wall towers in
- Payerne, Switzerland
- Ston, Croatia
- Głogów, Poland
- Avignon and Aigues-Mortes (illustrated)
03Literature
- Carl Rhoen (1894), Die Befestigungswerke der freien Reichsstadt Aachen (in German), Aachen: Verlag von Anton Creutzer, pp. 18f (Online version, pdf, 6.61MB)
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Half tower”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Fribourg 008 (retouché).jpg by Norbert Aepli, Switzerland (User:Noebu) Derivative work MagentaGreen, CC BY 2.5
- FR-84-Carpentras20.JPG by Szeder László, CC BY-SA 4.0
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