False Gate or Traitor’s Gate and perimeter Tower

Medieval fortifications typically had only two gates, as the openings were weak points in the defence, the second gate frequently being referred to as the Traitor’s Gate or False Gate. This was a hidden gate, frequently a small one, used to make sorties against the enemy in the case of a siege. The current gate is not referred to in old documents, because it is never represented on the main historical plans of the castle, particularly on one dated 1815, nor is it listed on a detailed military description made in 1813. The gate appears to be genuine and its opening, or perhaps better said, its exhumation from the rubble, was due to the works carried out here in the 1940s and 50s. On one side there is a square tower that shows, in part, how the Gothic towers would have looked that divided the sections of the long protective wall. Time and again, this tower is mistakenly identified as a keep.