When I some days ago saw a test for a ceremony with a green jeep (I drove such one during my miltary service) coming out the gates from I think Windsor castle, I was back in my childhood, playing knight with a sword in wood and even on a virtual horse. My sister assisted.

Yes those Norman castles both in France and England. And their sophisticated defences especially around the gates, where it was there that the enemy probably would enter. 

We have here the Count Castle in Ghent built in stone in 1180



I suppose the French and English Norman castles were earlier than 1180?

As for instance the "Tower of London"with its during time keen defence systems especially the gate



And that Tower Castle had applied all the rules of a good castle defence system, as you read it here?
https://www.exploring-castles.com/castle_designs/medieval_castle_defence/

And perhaps a last question...there are also Moorish castles and I have the impression that they have learned from the Norman castles or was it an interaction?

Paul  most "Norman" castles in England are later than you may think - the originals were wooden "motte and bailey" castles. Also, not all are as grand as those which you show - many are more like this fortified manor (which I forgot to sggest for a visit to Caro)

Green George wrote:

Paul  most "Norman" castles in England are later than you may think - the originals were wooden "motte and bailey" castles. Also, not all are as grand as those which you show - many are more like this fortified manor (which I forgot to sggest for a visit to Caro)

Gil, I will have to do a study of the French and English Norman castles I think. But you are right also the Count's Castle in Ghent was first a wooden "motte"
https://historischehuizen.stad.gent/en/castle-counts/history-and-stories
"The Castle of the Counts owes its existence to the Counts of Flanders. In the ninth century, Count Baldwin II built fortifications at all strategic places in his realm to protect himself from attacks from outside. His son, Arnulf I, continued with this work and built a fortress in Ghent at the confluence of the Rivers Leie and Scheldt on the site of the present Castle of the Counts.
It was a wooden square construction with a main building of two floors and a few outbuildings, including a grain store. This soon became the new hub for trade and industry in the region. Ghent developed into the biggest city of the brand-new Flanders."

And I read now for the first time in my life that the Castle was transformed into houses (see the link) and it was nearly razed to the ground in the 19th century...

In that was Bruges better. It aren't castle gates, but as important: city gates. From the seven gates are three destroyed ((1305) French king), but four remained and are now renovated in their old glory. As this one:



Regards, Paul.

here's one of Bridgnorth's gates - most seem to have fallen to the effects of the seige, and this one is moreor less spurious. https://www.aboutbridgnorth.com/northgate-museum/#iLightbox[gallery96]/0

The castle was another victim - here's what is left of the keep after it was slighted.

The gatehouse of Warwick castle wasn't just a fortification to keep attackers out - it was a carefully constructed killing ground. The outer portcullis was left open, inviting attack. According to the story told about it, when attacked, the portcullis was dropped, trapping the attackers, who were then hacked at from above with large axes, wielded by a number of men, and boiling-hot sand cascaded down from the murder holes. Apart from a successful surprise attack by supporters of Simon de Montford, no attacker ever emerged alive from an attack on this part of the castle (and yes, this too was a wooden motte and bailey in C11th, before being constructed in stone in C12th.)

I had no idea about that, GG, and Warwick is somewhere I've visited a few times over the years.  Isn't part of Warwick Castle still lived in? I think it was when I first visited there in 1964 but that's a tidy while ago now of course.

Green George wrote:

Paul  most "Norman" castles in England are later than you may think...

Indeed some, such as Windsor Castle, that Paul mentioned in his opening post, are basically Georgian/Victorian fantasies. When George IV came to the throne in 1820 he managed to persuade Parliament to vote him the enormous sum of £300,000 to restore the old Windsor Castle. However while his architect, Jeffry Wyatville, was a fan of Gothic-revival architecture, the king was rather keen on the Neoclassical style of the First French Empire and of the ornate revivalist Rococo style, hence the resulting "restoration" job ended up as a complete remodelling in a blend styles. Even the so-called 'Norman Gate' - which I suspect is what prompted Paul's post - although originally constructed by Edward III in the mid-14th century, was extensively remodelled in a pseudo-gothic style and so, other than the actual 14th century doorway itself, nearly all of what one sees today was built in the 1830s, with comfort and show in mind rather than defence: no Norman lord would ever have risked having windows that big.

The 19th century 'Norman Gate' of Windsor castle.

PaulRyckier wrote:

And I read now for the first time in my life that the Castle was transformed into houses (see the link) and it was nearly razed to the ground in the 19th century...

In that was Bruges better. It aren't castle gates, but as important: city gates. From the seven gates are three destroyed ((1305) French king), but four remained and are now renovated in their old glory.

It was a similar tale just across the water in Canterbury. Of the original 7 gates of the city only 1 remains - the Westgate. And that was very nearly demolished in the 1850s in order to allow a circus to parade elephants into town. The walls, gates and towers of Canterbury were originally Roman, they were restored by the Normans and later rebuilt and strengthened by the Plantagenets in the 1380s during the era of the Hundred Years War.



Most of the walls were taken down in the 18th and 19th centuries although along with the Westgate some sections of wall and some towers remain. Despite initial appearances the archway under the Westgate is actually large enuff to accommodate double-decker buses.

Green George wrote:

The gatehouse of Warwick castle wasn't just a fortification to keep attackers out - it was a carefully constructed killing ground. The outer portcullis was left open, inviting attack. According to the story told about it, when attacked, the portcullis was dropped, trapping the attackers, who were then hacked at from above with large axes, wielded by a number of men, and boiling-hot sand cascaded down from the murder holes. Apart from a successful surprise attack by supporters of Simon de Montford, no attacker ever emerged alive from an attack on this part of the castle (and yes, this too was a wooden motte and bailey in C11th, before being constructed in stone in C12th.)

 
GG, excuses for the delai, yes the entrance gates in castles were best defended and many times as you mention. During my research for this thread I found some equivalent multi layer defences in the entrance gates. I thought that it was in Windsor castle, but no...and I didn't find after a lot of research the castle anymore, as I had a lot of my research not archived.
Kind regards, Paul.

Vizzer wrote:

It was a similar tale just across the water in Canterbury. Of the original 7 gates of the city only 1 remains - the Westgate. And that was very nearly demolished in the 1850s in order to allow a circus to parade elephants into town. The walls, gates and towers of Canterbury were originally Roman, they were restored by the Normans and later rebuilt and strengthened by the Plantagenets in the 1380s during the era of the Hundred Years War.

Most of the walls were taken down in the 18th and 19th centuries although along with the Westgate some sections of wall and some towers remain. Despite initial appearances the archway under the Westgate is actually large enuff to accommodate double-decker buses.

 
Vizzer, I am so glad that we in Bruges are not alone. But it were always kings from "elsewhere", who wanted to demolish the gates as Philip the Fair in 1305 in retaliation for 1302...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Athis-sur-Orge 
or the Austrian emperor Joseph II in 1782...
Yes those Southern Netherlands always a rebellious region as with the first Belgian revolution in 1789 with the United States of Belgium in 1790.
https://lup.be/products/108391
Kind regards, Paul.

It’s certainly the case that many castles, city walls and gates were breached in wartime but many (most?) were taken down peacefully at later dates. It became fashionable in the 20th century to bemoan the loss of city walls and to laud the remaining walled cities of Europe as splendid tourist attractions. It’s a classic case of how the passage of time can romanticise the past. Who today, for instance, misses the Berlin Wall? And yet in the future it could well be the case that some antiquarians might sigh that it was demolished or that so little of it remains. The same applies with the so-called ‘peace walls’ in places like Belfast. More than 20 years on from Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement they are still very much in evidence and in effect. It is sometimes said (quite rightly in my opinion) that peace cannot truly be said to be a reality in such places until they too are removed.

Thus, the reasons for taking down city walls and gates heavily outweighed any aesthetic of nostalgic reasons against doing so. In the Age of Enlightenment they would have been a daily reminder of the strife and violence of the past. Much better to reuse the stones from the walls for other building purposes and demolish the gates for street widening and other municipal development reasons. And that’s not to mention having fewer damp, cold and shadowed places and more sunlight and air which would be particularly important factors to consider, for example, in the cooler climes of northern Europe. Viewed this way, therefore, it’s almost miraculous that any walls and gates survived the population explosion and urban expansion of the 18th and 19th centuries at all.
 
One gate which did survive those centuries, however, is the gate-tower on the Monnow Bridge guarding the entrance to Monmouth in Wales:



As far as I know it is now unique in Great Britain whereas such castellated bridges were once commonplace. Built during the reign of Edward Longshanks, the Monnow Bridge gate-tower narrowly avoided destruction during the English Civil War of the 1640s and again during road-widening works in the 1810s.

Thank you Vizzer for your thinking about the reasons for taking down the city walls and gates. 
And as such I wanted to point to another miraculous surviving city gate: The Porta Nigra of Augusta Treverorum.
I was that many times in Trier and even more passing that Porta, but now I was seeking as for Bruges for the defensive purpose. And indeed if I read it well, the city wall had a defensive function as the gates. And if this picture is correct it is not that different from the some nine centuries later Bruges...
https://thelosttreasurechest.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/historical-reconstructions-part-v/gaule-augusta-treverorum-treves/



Kind regards, Paul.