1 of 6: Welcome to the virtual tour of Castle Rising. Use the left and
right arrows above to move from one image to the next. This page
should work with IE4+, NS4+ and Mozilla Firefox.
You can walk up to the gatehouse, see the portculis open and
explore the interia area of the castle if you have the
VRML plug-in installed. There are detail on the right of this
page explaining how to install the plug-in and how to move
around in VRML worlds.
Slide Show
2 of 6: This is what Castle Rising may have looked like in the past. A stone
wall on top of the huge mounds of earth surrounds the bailey. Inside
the bailey is the large keep and to the north is the Norman church. Other
smaller building would have been located in the bailey, some of stone
and some of wood. Remains of a stone building are visible at Rising
just to the south of the keep, but they are not shown on the
reconstruction.
The castle is surrounded by a large ditch and other earthworks. These
can be explored if you load the the VRML model.
Slide Show
3 of 6: The gatehouse is Norman and was built in around 1140. There would
have been a room above the entrance where the portcullis would
have lifted into. Most castles have only one entrance, defended
by a strong gatehouse. Having a strong gatehouse was important as
if attackers could get through the gatehouse they
could then take the whole castle.
If you cross the bridge in the VRML model the
portcullis will automatically rise to allow you to enter.
Slide Show
4 of 6: The first thing you see as you leave the gatehouse is the castle's
keep.
Slide Show
5 of 6: This is the castle's bailey. The bailey is the open area inside
the castle walls. The bailey at Castle Rising contained not only
the large keep and outer buildings, but also a church. The church
could date back to 1100 and was probably painted white.
The wall
around the edge of the castle are known as the curtain wall and
at Castle Rising had several towers.
Slide Show
6 of 6: The keep was the residence within the castle for the Lord and
his family. The entrance to the keep was via a doorway in the
forebuilding and up a flight of stairs to the main hall. The
forebuilding at Castle Rising is richly decorated indicating
that the owner was extremely wealthy. As well as the the main hall,
the keep had a basement for storage, a kitchen and Chapel.
Please install the VRML plug-in and take time to explore the
castle and its surrounding earthworks. See the instuctions on
the right of this page for details.
