Gilles Gaer
Country side
The Laon Gate defends the main access to the medieval town of Coucy. This exceptional monument is one of three gates into the walls and displays a very strong façade towards the countryside contrasting with the open town side. The gate, the town wall and the famous Coucy castle were built at the beginning of the XIII century during the lordship of Enguerrand III (d. 1242).
The gate is formed of two large round towers framing a main passage protected by an impressive array of defences. A secondary passage, below the former, gives access to an artificial ditch and to a barbican, perfecting the defences of the gate. A massive lodging forms the back of the building.
Overall, this front of the town wall was defended by six towers and a very powerful wall.
The top floors of the towers have now been destroyed; it is however fair to assume that they were roofed. Viollet-le-Duc (whose interpretation of the gate is somewhat tendentious) renders them with hoardings and conical roofs.
The defence
The sloped passage is relatively narrow on the country side but opens up to reach 4.8m on the town side. The first section occupying about one third of the length of the passage is vaulted and protected by a series of obstacles: arrow slits accessible from the towers, two portcullises separated by a murder-hole and a two-leaf door. The second section (under the lodging) is curiously underprotected. A hoarding above the entrance permits the protection of both passages when the bridge (the shape of which is not known for sure) was drawn.
The towers
The towers reinforced by a talus were constructed on five levels, dominating the lodging by two floors. They were pierced by arrow slits on three levels. The first two levels (one of which below ground) may have been used as a prison. The third level was a guard room. The two rooms on this floor communicated via the porticullis chamber (and gave access to the murder hole). They were accessible from the ground floor by stairs in the thickness of the wall. They were also giving access to the main room of the lodging and to the walls. The fourth floor gave access to the hoarding.
The lodging
The lodging was formed of three floors. On the basement, square rooms with a central pillar linked the secondary passage and the town. The ground floor rooms had doors on the main passage and gave access to the tow ground floor and the stairs to the upper levels. A large room occupied the first floor. This room, with a large fireplace was used as a court room.
Note: I principally used two sources: the paper by Faucherre and Sautereau "la porte de Laon à Coucy" and the encyclopedia of Viollet-le-Duc (which should not always be taken at face value but is an incredible source of inspiration... and freely available on the net). As a word of caution (hope not to sound pedantic), while I tried to stick to some historical accuracy, I also wanted an interesting build... I thus chose to follow Viollet-le-Duc notably on the roofs and the drawbridge, although this is probably not reflecting the reality!
Country side
The Laon Gate defends the main access to the medieval town of Coucy. This exceptional monument is one of three gates into the walls and displays a very strong façade towards the countryside contrasting with the open town side. The gate, the town wall and the famous Coucy castle were built at the beginning of the XIII century during the lordship of Enguerrand III (d. 1242).
The gate is formed of two large round towers framing a main passage protected by an impressive array of defences. A secondary passage, below the former, gives access to an artificial ditch and to a barbican, perfecting the defences of the gate. A massive lodging forms the back of the building.
Overall, this front of the town wall was defended by six towers and a very powerful wall.
The top floors of the towers have now been destroyed; it is however fair to assume that they were roofed. Viollet-le-Duc (whose interpretation of the gate is somewhat tendentious) renders them with hoardings and conical roofs.
The defence
The sloped passage is relatively narrow on the country side but opens up to reach 4.8m on the town side. The first section occupying about one third of the length of the passage is vaulted and protected by a series of obstacles: arrow slits accessible from the towers, two portcullises separated by a murder-hole and a two-leaf door. The second section (under the lodging) is curiously underprotected. A hoarding above the entrance permits the protection of both passages when the bridge (the shape of which is not known for sure) was drawn.
The towers
The towers reinforced by a talus were constructed on five levels, dominating the lodging by two floors. They were pierced by arrow slits on three levels. The first two levels (one of which below ground) may have been used as a prison. The third level was a guard room. The two rooms on this floor communicated via the porticullis chamber (and gave access to the murder hole). They were accessible from the ground floor by stairs in the thickness of the wall. They were also giving access to the main room of the lodging and to the walls. The fourth floor gave access to the hoarding.
The lodging
The lodging was formed of three floors. On the basement, square rooms with a central pillar linked the secondary passage and the town. The ground floor rooms had doors on the main passage and gave access to the tow ground floor and the stairs to the upper levels. A large room occupied the first floor. This room, with a large fireplace was used as a court room.
Note: I principally used two sources: the paper by Faucherre and Sautereau "la porte de Laon à Coucy" and the encyclopedia of Viollet-le-Duc (which should not always be taken at face value but is an incredible source of inspiration... and freely available on the net). As a word of caution (hope not to sound pedantic), while I tried to stick to some historical accuracy, I also wanted an interesting build... I thus chose to follow Viollet-le-Duc notably on the roofs and the drawbridge, although this is probably not reflecting the reality!