Castle Black elevator

[CashBanks]

Dark greetings,

I've been mulling over the elevator at Castle Black and how much to use it as inspiration for the other castles like Nightfort and Eastwatch.



From my read of the canon, it looks like this elevator was more inspired by the show's depiction, rather than the books.

https://imgur.com/ZW7VY86

The books describe the Watch ascending up the Wall with a "winch cage".
Here's Tyrion's description:

A wooden stair ascended the south face, anchored on huge rough-hewn beams sunk deep into the ice and frozen in place. Back and forth it switched, clawing its way upward as crooked as a bolt of lightning. The black brothers assured him that it was much stronger than it looked, but Tyrion's legs were cramping too badly for him to even contemplate the ascent. He went instead to the iron cage beside the well, clambered inside, and yanked hard on the bell rope, three quick pulls.

He had to wait what seemed an eternity, standing there inside the bars with the Wall to his back. Long enough for Tyrion to begin to wonder why he was doing this. He had just about decided to forget his sudden whim and go to bed when the cage gave a jerk and began to ascend.

He moved upward slowly, by fits and starts at first, then more smoothly. The ground fell away beneath him, the cage swung, and Tyrion wrapped his hands around the iron bars. He could feel the cold of the metal even through his gloves. Morrec had a fire burning in his room, he noted with approval, but the Lord Commander's tower was dark. The Old Bear had more sense than he did, it seemed.

Finally a thick voice behind him said, "Seven hells, it's the dwarf," and the cage jerked to a sudden stop and hung there, swinging slowly back and forth, the ropes creaking.
"Bring him in, damn it." There was a grunt and a loud groaning of wood as the cage slid sideways and then the Wall was beneath him. Tyrion waited until the swinging had stopped before he pushed open the cage door and hopped down onto the ice.

Sam's experience:

Without the great stair there was no way to reach the top of the Wall except by the chain winch, however. And as much as Samwell Tarly hated steps, he hated the winch cage more. He always closed his eyes when he was riding it, convinced that the chain was about to break. Every time the iron cage scraped against the ice his heart stopped beating for an instant.

One of Jon's rides

He found Leathers waiting for him by the winch cage. The two of them rode up together. The higher they went, the stronger the wind. Fifty feet up, the heavy cage began to sway with every gust. From time to time it scraped against the Wall, starting small crystalline showers of ice that sparkled in the sunlight as they fell. They rose above the tallest towers of the castle. At four hundred feet the wind had teeth, and tore at his black cloak so it slapped noisily at the iron bars. At seven hundred it cut right through him. The Wall is mine, Jon reminded himself as the winchmen were swinging in the cage, for two more days, at least.

Other details
- Cage is big enough for ten people at a time and at least four barrels of gravel

So bottom line, from my read of these quotes, it looks like we've differed from canon a bit with our interpretation. The way they describe the cage "swinging" in the breeze and bumping against the Wall indicates it's free hanging, without any wooden frame/shaft to guide it. It's just a cage attached to a chain, which is raised and lowered by a crane at the top of the Wal.



Something like this:

The actual winch mechanism is still unclear, there's no mention of whether it's a hamster wheel like in this example, or if it's a horizontally spun crank, or a more elaborate counterweight system.

I'm interested to get people's thoughts on whether I'm on the right track with this one.

The Wall Castle server build would give us a chance to update the Castle Black elevator if we thought it was critically necessary.

I'm not really in a rush to make any major changes to Castle Black. It's one of the oldest builds on the server (and I think the elevator was copied across from its first iteration) so I can understand if there’s a sentimental attachment which could take priority over the exact alignment with canon. I'd probably go with this cage crane interpretation at the Nightfort and Eastwatch.

 

[Enah]

It's very HBO inspired, I think at the time we chose to do HBO CB because it was recognizable and didn't counter canon much at all. Except the tunnel and the wench

 

[EStoop]

Either design has their merits, but I think the drawings by Nahsmith are fairly accurate in most representations of canon.

That said, I'd expect a crane covering that height, with that much wind, transporting people to have at least some measures to prevent the cage slinging against the wall and preventing everyone inside to end up like Patrek of King's Mountain.
The HBO design does give some room for the cage to wiggle, so as far as I'm concerned it does not go against the canon we have.

We could go for a less timber heavy design with just a "rail" directly under the cage with a rope or chain attached to the cage, preventing it from swinging too violently during the ascent or descent.

 

[Die Wursttheke]

I like the idea with the free swinging cage! In my opinion, a crane that has to overcome such a height should have a large counterweight.
Hard enough for 5 barrels of gravel and 4 round samwells.

A chain below to protect against large gusts of wind. Two chains on top of the cage. And with a box that has a "big" center in it, it's important that the cage swings against the other chain.
Left-Right-Left-Right, yet always balancing.

I could also imagine a gear wheel or a fuse that snaps into place. For example: the cage is pulled up 50 meters -> the rope clicks into a safety device on the ground or on the wall, now it no longer goes down, and if something went wrong you only fall 50 meters.
Westeros has incredible structures. Scaffolding, as well as crane construction and machines are well thought out and carpentered with great skill.

 

[Bovine]

I imagined that livestock was used to hoist the cage in the mechanism, tho i do not think that is mentioned in the books? I have been rereading AGOT and noticed that when Jon brings up the gravel (or Tyrion?) he is greeted at the top by the operator so apparently it has to be operated from atop the wall. if this is the case is it plausible for livestock to be on the wall for long periods of time? would they have livestock living in a barn up there? i dont think so, but Im not really sure how else it could be done.

 

[IronGentleGiant]

Cage is big enough for ten people at a time and at least four barrels of gravel

Hmmm... that's 10 Kit Harrington's weighing in at roughly 150 pounds each and 4 barrels of gravel each weighing roughly 70 pounds which totals roughly 1780 pounds, almost 1 ton. We're prolly looking at a fairly sophisticated combination of the Treadwheel crane and Brunelleschi's 360 degree crane. A double wheeled treadwheel crane could haul up around 2.5 tons. We prolly have a large cage anchored by a weight and tight chain way down on the ground so that the cage doesn't sway too much in the wind whether going up or coming down.

Brunelleschi's Cranes:

AIArchitect This Week | Il Duomo: Brunelleschi and the Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore

Treadwheel Cranes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadwheel_crane

 

[otty]

Hmmm... that's 10 Kit Harrington's weighing in at roughly 150 pounds each and 4 barrels of gravel each weighing roughly 70 pounds which totals roughly 1780 pounds, almost 1 ton. We're prolly looking at a fairly sophisticated combination of the Treadwheel crane and Brunelleschi's 360 degree crane. A double wheeled treadwheel crane could haul up around 2.5 tons. We prolly have a large cage anchored by a weight and tight chain way down on the ground so that the cage doesn't sway too much in the wind whether going up or coming down.

Brunelleschi's Cranes:

AIArchitect This Week | Il Duomo: Brunelleschi and the Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore

Treadwheel Cranes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadwheel_crane

Brunelleschi's Crane was an extremely early renaissance invention (Late 13th early 14th), anyone who uses this for reference be wary of this for historical timing/accuracy. I presume the crane is something thats been there for quite awhile and therefore needs to be of an older model — The treadwheel.

 

[inactive]

There's also the fun question abt how medieval people could put a huge treadwheel on top of a 700 ft high wall.

 

[Agonizes]

Clearly they would have needed a crane to lift the crane, and then they would have needed an even larger crane to lift that crane.
It's cranes all the way down.

 

[CashBanks]

Castle Black's switchback stair up the Wall also gets demolished during Mance's attack, after which the winch cage was their only means of getting to the top. This presumably means they've got to have winch men stationed up there 24/7 so it makes sense they'd have some kind of shelter for them too.

 

[Die Wursttheke]

There's also the fun question abt how medieval people could put a huge treadwheel on top of a 700 ft high wall.

They would climb up and secure a safer way with ropes and ladders. Than they use pulleys and manpower to carry single manufactured pieces to the top. On top of the Wall the pieces getting constructed together and placed into the right position.

This is how many of the ancient structures were built once. After the crane or a bigger structure is made, the rest of the top of the wall would be fortified etc etc

 

[IronGentleGiant]

They would climb up and secure a safer way with ropes and ladders. Than they use pulleys and manpower to carry single manufactured pieces to the top. On top of the Wall the pieces getting constructed together and placed into the right position.

This is how many of the ancient structures were built once. After the crane or a bigger structure is made, the rest of the top of the wall would be fortified etc etc

An old college prank.

At one of the universities in Alabama longtime ago in the 1970s there used to be a massive wooden 20 ft tall 10 ft wide rocking chair that weighed about 2 tons on campus built by architecture students 10 years prior. In the 1970s the fraternities on that campus had a bet to see who could lift the rocking chair on top of the student building which was about 200 ft tall. Several student pledges from one fraternity were building and construction science majors and decided to give it a go. In one night they disassembled the massive rocking chair and hoisted it up to the top of the student building piece by piece. Then reassembled it. For about a week after, the administration had a hard time figuring out how to get it down. They did eventually bring it down, however, something happened when their crane was hoisting it down and the big rocking chair plummeted to the ground and broke.

I could go into more stories of college pranks where students lifted massive materials on top of buildings as a prank, but nah for now.

 

[CashBanks]

While semi on the subject, does anyone have an insight into the design of these shelters at the top of the Wall at Castle Black? Was there a particular reason why they're not fully covered?

 

[Deiniol]

Looks to me like they are inspired by the shelters in the show.

 

[IronGentleGiant]

While semi on the subject, does anyone have an insight into the design of these shelters at the top of the Wall at Castle Black? Was there a particular reason why they're not fully covered?

View attachment 17533View attachment 17532

Looks like the ones that you'd tie a rope to and then wrap around yourself so you can hang off the side and fire arrows at anyone trying to scale the wall. Could modify it using rope anchored to a castrap.
Alternatively you could make a roofed building or hoarding with openings in the floorboards to loose arrows or other projectiles down at wildlings scaling the wall.

On a side note to add more defenses to the walls in the case of the one catapult, you could mount it to the south side of the wall, sorta like how they did with wall-mounted Trebuchets in the movie The Great Wall. Of course I am joking, though it would be an ingenious feat of engineering for the Maesters at the Citadel to come up with.

 

[inactive]

While semi on the subject, does anyone have an insight into the design of these shelters at the top of the Wall at Castle Black? Was there a particular reason why they're not fully covered?

View attachment 17533View attachment 17532

https://uploads.dailydot.com/6ee/9c/927aa75dd781e5f2.png?auto=compress&fm=png

From the tv show.

It looks like it should be beams that would hold up a thatch roof, but they just haven't done it for some reason. It's flat, because the high winds mean having a large gable end would be pointless - a bit like the low pitched rooves you see in alpine areas. idk tbh