A murder hole or meurtrière is a hole in the ceiling of a gateway or passageway in a fortification through which the defenders could shoot, throw or pour harmful substances or objects such as rocks, arrows, scalding water, hot sand, quicklime, or boiling oil, down on attackers. Boiling oil was rarely used because of its cost. Similar holes, called machicolations, were often located in the curtain walls of castles, fortified manor houses, and

city wall 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 ...

s. The

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

would project over corbels so that holes would be located over the exterior face of the wall, allowing the defenders to target attackers at the base of the wall. The primary difference between these two features is in their location. Murder holes were located on the interiors of castles and other fortified buildings at the entranceway. Their supposed intention was to discourage (or kill) invaders once they had breached the walls, though it has been suggested that they may have in some cases also facilitated more prosaic activities, such as communication between levels. For example, the murder hole at

Audley's Castle Audley's Castle is a 15th-century castle located 1 mile (1.6 km) north-east of Strangford, County Down, Northern Ireland, on a rocky height overlooking Strangford Lough. It is a three-storey Tower house named after its 16th century owner, ...

in County Down, Northern Ireland is located not over the main threshold, but over the entry way to an interior room. In

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...

s, often considered aetiologically to be small castles, the most common location for these features is located over the lobby, the effective equivalent of locating them over a

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mo ...

in a true castle. It bears note that most, if not all, murder holes have only a restricted view of the lobbies below, supporting the idea that other uses may have been common. However, murder holes have been described in a variety of areas within fortified buildings, and there is no completely reliable formula for their placement. The murder hole in

Tully Castle Tully Castle ( Irish: ''Caisleán na Tulaí'' meaning "castle on the hill") is a castle situated in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, near the village of Blaney, on Blaney Bay on the southern shore of Lower Lough Erne. The Blaney area take ...

, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland is located in the central portion of the first floor of the house, west of a

cross-wall A cross-wall is an interior dividing wall of a castle. It may be an external wall dividing, for example, the inner and outer wards, or it may be a wall internal to a building such as the keep.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Cast ...

and piercing the vault of the lower chamber.

References

Castle architecture Ceilings Holes {{Architecturalelement-stub

See also

References