Staircases at Hever Castle

Staircases at Hever Castle

I’m a sucker for a staircase, especially grand ornate ones with intricately carved balustrades.

Hever Castle certainly has a few, from functional to spiral, to grand.

Imagining the Boleyn’s walking on these very steps, was awesome!

Did you know, the first spiral staircases date back nearly 2,500 years to Ancient Greece.
They became more popular in Ancient Rome, due to their space saving design.

As Roman architecture began to spread throughout Europe, spiral staircases were adopted into first Christian, and then defensive architecture.

These are seen in the original, medieval spiral staircase in the gatehouse at Hever.

At Hever Castle some of the steps are different depths, this was a deliberate feature in many medieval castles.
The idea was, that those who inhabited the castle would know where the uneven steps were – while anyone who chose to attack, would be thrown off, or tripped up by the sudden changes.
This gave the defenders an important advantage.

With spiral staircases also being quite narrow, it was impossible to launch a large assault, as any attackers would have to ascend one at a time, with little space available for wielding weapons.

For those ascending, the spiral staircase in a castle would be designed to turn in a clockwise direction. This meant that their right hand which was normally their sword arm, would be tight against the narrowest part of the stairs.
This made it almost impossible for the attacker to use their sword effectively.

Those defending the castle, however, had much more freedom of movement to strike downwards with their swords.

? Picture Credits – M.Tong for The Tudor Intruders.