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Medieval castle towers were originally square, projecting out beyond the castle wall to allow for archers to shoot along the outside length of the walls. Square towers have angled corners which not only produce blind spots for the defenders, but which also represent weak parts of the construction - undermining a tower corner will bring down the entire structure.

This is exactly what happened at Rochester castle in 1215; the castle fell and the tower was later rebuilt in circular form.

Circular towers have no blind spots and no angles that can be undermined. But it was soon noticed that the interior part of the tower was really of no value defensively or structurally; only the half facing the exterior needed to be curved. Making the inner face perfectly flat (so the tower now had a D-section) saved on construction time and allowed the wall walk to pass behind the flat face of the tower.

Some of these D-towers were completely open at the back, others had a flat wall of timber or stone.

The 14th century city walls of Canterbury in Kent had many of these open-backed D-towers, together with some older square towers.

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