Medieval fortification refers to medieval military methods that cover the development of fortification construction and use in Europe, roughly from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance. During this millennium, fortifications changed warfare, and in turn were modified to suit new tactics, weapons and siege techniques.
Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York, in the United States. It was constructed by Canadian-born French military engineer Michel Chartier de Lotbinière, Marquis de Lotbinière between October 1755 and 1757, during the action in the "North American theater" of the Seven Years' War, often referred to in the US as the French and Indian War. The fort was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played an important role during the Revolutionary War.
Fort Montgomery was a fortification built on the west bank of the Hudson River in Highlands, New York by the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Erected in 1776, Fort Montgomery was one of the first major investments by the Americans in strategic construction projects.
Rouses Point is a village in Clinton County, New York, United States, along the 45th parallel. The population was 2,209 at the 2010 census. The village is named after Jacques Rouse, a French Canadian soldier who fought alongside the Americans during their war for independence. The village is on the western shore of Lake Champlain at the source of the Richelieu River. Also located in the northeastern corner of the town of Champlain, it is north of the city of Plattsburgh and is on the Canada–United States border.
A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates for access to the city. From ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements. Generally, these are referred to as city walls or town walls, although there were also walls, such as the Great Wall of China, Walls of Benin, Hadrian's Wall, Anastasian Wall, and the Atlantic Wall, which extended far beyond the borders of a city and were used to enclose regions or mark territorial boundaries. In mountainous terrain, defensive walls such as letzis were used in combination with castles to seal valleys from potential attack. Beyond their defensive utility, many walls also had important symbolic functions – representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced.
The Battle of Plattsburgh, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, ended the final British invasion of the northern states of the United States during the War of 1812. Two British forces, an army under Lieutenant General Sir George Prévost and a naval squadron under Captain George Downie converged on the lakeside town of Plattsburgh, New York. Plattsburgh was defended by New York and Vermont militia and detachments of regular troops of the United States Army, all under the command of Brigadier General Alexander Macomb, and ships commanded by Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough.
A fortification is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin fortis ("strong") and facere.
Fort Carillon, presently known as Fort Ticonderoga, was constructed by Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Governor of New France, to protect Lake Champlain from a British invasion. Situated on the lake some 15 miles (24 km) south of Fort Saint Frédéric, it was built to prevent an attack on Canada and slow the advance of the enemy long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Fort William Henry was a British fort at the southern end of Lake George, in the province of New York. The fort's construction was ordered by Sir William Johnson in September 1755, during the French and Indian War, as a staging ground for attacks against the French position at Fort St. Frédéric. It was part of a chain of British and French forts along the important inland waterway from New York City to Montreal, and occupied a key forward location on the frontier between New York and New France. In 1757, the French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm conducted a successful siege that forced the British to surrender. The Huron warriors who accompanied the French army subsequently killed many of the British prisoners. The siege and massacre were portrayed in James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans.
Fort York is an early 19th-century military fortification in the Fort York neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The fort was used to house members of the British and Canadian militaries, and to defend the entrance of the Toronto Harbour. The fort features stone-lined earthwork walls and eight historical buildings within them, including two blockhouses. The fort forms a part of Fort York National Historic Site, a 16.6 ha (41-acre) site that includes the fort, Garrison Common, military cemeteries, and a visitor centre.
Castillo San Felipe del Morro, also known as El Morro, is a citadel built between 16th and 18th centuries in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in July 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario, in a location traditionally known as Cataraqui. It is the present-day location of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The original fort, a crude, wooden palisade structure, was called Fort Cataraqui but was later named for Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor of New France who was responsible for building the fort. It was abandoned and razed in 1689, then rebuilt in 1695.
Fort Saint-Frédéric was a French fort built on Lake Champlain to secure the region against British colonization and control the lake. It was located in modern New York State across the lake from modern Vermont at the town of Crown Point, New York. The fort, whose construction began in 1734, was never attacked, and was destroyed in 1759 before the advance of a large British army under General Jeffery Amherst.
Île aux Noix is an island on the Richelieu River in Quebec, close to Lake Champlain. The island is the site of Fort Lennox National Historic Site of Canada. Politically, it is part of Saint-Paul-de-l'Île-aux-Noix.
Upnor Castle is an Elizabethan artillery fort located on the west bank of the River Medway in Kent. It is in the village of Upnor, opposite and a short distance downriver from the Chatham Dockyard, at one time a key naval facility. The fort was intended to protect both the dockyard and ships of the Royal Navy anchored in the Medway. It was constructed between 1559 and 1567 on the orders of Elizabeth I, during a period of tension with Spain and other European powers. The castle consists of a two-storeyed main building protected by a curtain wall and towers, with a triangular gun platform projecting into the river. It was garrisoned by about 80 men with a peak armament of around 20 cannon of various calibres.
Fort Augusta was a stronghold in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, in the upper Susquehanna Valley from the time of the French and Indian War to the close of the American Revolution.
The "Old Stone Barracks" is the last remaining structure of a proposed quadrangle of early U.S. Army barracks built at Plattsburgh, New York in 1838. Of the four main buildings initially planned for the Plattsburgh post, only two were ever constructed, an officer's barracks and an enlisted barracks which formed an "L" shape. The buildings were utilized by the Army for nearly a century. The officer's quarters, in which Lt. Ulysses S. Grant once stayed, was torn down by the U.S. Air Force during the winter of 1963. The remaining building, the 200-foot (61 m) long, two story "Old Stone Barracks," remained mostly empty after the early 1960s and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In December 2010 the Barracks and more than 7 acres of property was offered to a Canadian real estate developer for $35,000 with the intention of building an apartment complex on the historic site. At the time, the Barracks property was appraised at over $775,000 and the sale sparked public outcry for its preservation. In 2014, the building was again sold to current owners Terry Schmaltz and Mary Theresa Pearl who redeveloped it as the home of the "Valcour Brewing Company." The new craft brewery opened in 2016.
Crab Island is a roughly 40-acre (0.16 km2) limestone island situated in Lake Champlain just outside Plattsburgh Bay in the town of Plattsburgh in Clinton County in upstate New York. During the War of 1812, the island was utilized as a military field hospital for convalescent soldiers as well as both British and American casualties of the Battle of Plattsburgh. The island is the site of a mass grave believed to contain the remains of roughly 150 of those casualties.
The Gibraltar peninsula, located at the far southern end of Iberia, has great strategic importance as a result of its position by the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. It has repeatedly been contested between European and North African powers and has endured fourteen sieges since it was first settled in the 11th century. The peninsula's occupants – Moors, Spanish, and British – have built successive layers of fortifications and defences including walls, bastions, casemates, gun batteries, magazines, tunnels and galleries. At their peak in 1865, the fortifications housed around 681 guns mounted in 110 batteries and positions, guarding all land and sea approaches to Gibraltar. The fortifications continued to be in military use until as late as the 1970s and by the time tunnelling ceased in the late 1960s, over 34 miles (55 km) of galleries had been dug in an area of only 2.6 square miles (6.7 km2).
Negombo Fort was a small but important fort in Negombo, approx. 30 km (19 mi) north of Colombo, that was built by the Portuguese to defend Colombo.
