Medieval castles often feature spiral staircases that typically wind upward in a clockwise direction. According to a 2011 study, about 70 percent of castles in England and Wales have such designs.
Almost every tour guide who leads tours through historic buildings claims these staircases aren’t just randomly twisted clockwise. The idea is that a defender standing a few steps above an attacker can wield a sword more effectively.
“History shows that all spiral staircases in castles turn clockwise so that right-handed defenders, striking from above, have an advantage over attackers who are hindered by the central column,” archaeologist James Wright explained.
However, he points to one problem: there seems to be “not a shred of truth” to this theory.
Debunking the Myth
In reality, there is no compelling evidence supporting this idea. As James Wright noted, chroniclers who documented castle sieges rarely mentioned “battles on the stairs.” At least, not nearly as often as films portray them.
Even if a fight did reach the stage of “swinging at each other on the stairs,” it’s hard to argue that stair fighting decided the outcome of a siege.
The sword—the most iconic weapon of the medieval knight—was at least 110 centimeters long, including the hilt. This is significantly longer than, for example, the 70-centimeter stair width in the Great Tower of Goodrich Castle. Swinging such a sword would be awkward, regardless of the direction, according to IFLScience.
“Such an incredibly tight space would not allow for the effective use of such a weapon,” Wright said. Moreover, a swordsman positioned above would be vulnerable because of exposed legs and lower body and because the downward slope would cause balance issues.
Yet This Theory Persists
You can blame the Victorian era for this theory; it spawned lots of myths about medieval life.
According to the archaeologist, the originator of the clockwise-staircase story was an English art historian, Sir Theodore Andrea Cook. He first included the tale in his 1902 essay on spiral staircases.
Cook’s piece wasn’t an engineering treatise on tactical advantages. It was an art-historical discussion of spiral forms, and in it he suggested that counterclockwise staircases might once have been more common and convenient.
James Wright added that Cook picked up followers after that essay: “Writer Guy Cadogan Rothery repeated the swordsman theory and referenced Cook in his bibliography. Then, it was included in popular books about castles by author Sidney Toy, and by the mid-20th century, it became widely accepted knowledge.”
Time to Dispel the Myths
So what explains the prevalence of spiral staircases winding clockwise in medieval castles? The answer is probably practical rather than tactical. Archaeologist Wright suggested, “The direction of the turn may be related to the convenience of transporting goods, spatial considerations for access, or perhaps even one-way access systems.”
Ultimately, medieval staircases were mostly what they are today: a way to move between floors. The reason many of them spiral clockwise may simply be down to taste or fashion. Counterclockwise staircases fell out of favor in the 11th and 12th centuries before regaining popularity in the latter half of the 13th century.
So why do medieval staircases typically wind clockwise? For the practical reasons above, and for design and spatial considerations — not for defense against attackers.
Of course, that’s a hard myth to kill. “The swordsman theory is incredibly popular. I have no doubt that the myth will continue to be retold,” Wright says.
