Castle planner
Design a complete castle: curtain wall with wall walk and battlements, towers, gatehouse with portcullis, keep, moat with drawbridge and buildings in the courtyard. Choose a plan and a style, from Dutch moated castle to French Loire château. Build it layer by layer and click the blocks you have placed.
Plan view
Curtain wall
From 2 blocks thick there is a wall walk on top behind the battlements.
Towers
At most this many blocks between two towers. 0 = corners only.
Gate
A walled forecourt in front of the gate. 0 = none.
Keep
Moat and hill
Courtyard
Elevation
What stands further back is drawn darker. The dotted line is ground level. Click a layer to view it.
Plan view
The dotted lines are the outlines of the walls, the dots are the tower centres. The gate is always at the bottom.
Build breakdown
Towers
Position of the centre, measured from the middle of the castle. Click a tower to open its bottom layer.
| No. | Type | Centre (x, z) | Shape, width | Up to layer |
|---|
Per layer, from top to bottom
Click a layer to view it.
| Layer | Building blocks | Of which roof | Water | Dirt |
|---|
Build tips
- First mark the middle, then the corners or the tower centres from the table. Then build layer 1 all the way round.
- Dig the moat only once the walls stand, and pour the water in last.
- Build tower roofs from the bottom up. Place the stairs with your back to the middle of the tower, so the high side faces inwards.
- Machicolations are upside-down stairs. Place them while looking at the top half of a block.
- Choose "Per part" in the block palette to give walls, towers, keep and roofs a block of their own.
- A hill takes a lot of dirt. Set Hill to 0 if you build the castle on an existing hill in your world.
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the design as a schematic file and paste it into your world with WorldEdit, or build along with a hologram in Litematica. The block you choose is used for stone walls. Brick, plaster, sandstone, roofs, wood, glass, water and dirt get fixed blocks.
Shopping list
Put the amounts of this design on your list. There you see everything together, converted to stacks and shulker boxes.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
From mound and palisade to stone castle
The first castles in Europe, around the year 1000, were made of wood. A motte-and-bailey had an earth mound with a wooden tower, and a yard surrounded by a palisade and a ditch.
After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the Normans built hundreds of them. Later, stone towers and walls replaced the wood, as in the White Tower in London.
What was a castle for?
A castle was both a home and a fortress. The lord lived there with his family, soldiers and servants. From the castle he ruled the land around it.
The keep was the strongest tower and the last place of refuge. In the courtyard stood a great hall, a chapel, stables, a well and workshops.
Walls, towers and gates
A curtain wall had a wall walk with battlements on top. Round towers turned out to be stronger than square ones, because stone missiles glanced off them and there was no weak corner.
The gate was the weakest point. So there was a gatehouse with a portcullis, a drawbridge over the moat and sometimes an outer gate, the barbican. Machicolations in the wall let defenders drop stones down.
Concentric castles and water castles
After the Crusades, castles were built with two rings of walls, the inner one higher than the outer one. Krak des Chevaliers in Syria and Beaumaris in Wales are well-known examples.
In the low, wet Netherlands people built water castles, surrounded by wide moats. Muiderslot was built around 1285 for Count Floris V.
From fortress to fairy-tale castle
With the cannon, high walls became vulnerable. Castles turned into palaces, such as the castles along the Loire in France, with towers, large windows and pointed roofs.
In the 19th century people became fond of castles again. King Ludwig II of Bavaria began building Neuschwanstein in 1869. In the same period, Carcassonne in France was restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
Did you know?
- Beaumaris Castle in Wales was started in 1295 for King Edward I, but was never finished.
- Carcassonne has a double ring of walls about 3 kilometres long with 52 towers.
- Neuschwanstein was one of the models for the Disney castle.
- A bergfried is a tall round or square tower that you mainly see in German castles.
- Muiderslot is now a museum near Muiden, where the river Vecht flows into the IJmeer.
About this tool
With this castle planner you build a complete castle in Minecraft. The tool designs the curtain wall with wall walk and battlements, the towers, the gatehouse with portcullis, the keep, the moat with drawbridge and the buildings in the courtyard.
You choose a floor plan: square castle with corner towers, water castle, concentric castle with two rings, shell keep on a hill, hill castle as an irregular polygon or motte-and-bailey. With a building style (Dutch, French, Italian, German, English, Scandinavian or Austrian) you set matching options in one step. Examples such as a Dutch water castle, Carcassonne, a Loire castle or a Crusader castle help you get started.
For the wall you choose material, height, thickness, the type of battlements, machicolations and arrow slits. Towers can be round, square, D-shaped or octagonal, with battlements, a cone roof, needle spire, onion dome or pyramid roof. You choose a gatehouse, a barbican, a keep, a moat with water or a dry ditch, a hill, and a great hall and chapel in the courtyard.
The elevations, the section and the floor plan show the whole castle. With the layer-by-layer build plan and the tower table you build it, and the 3D view shows the whole design. The counter counts blocks, water and earth. With the block palette you give walls, towers, keep and roofs their own block, and then you download the castle as a .schem file.
For separate parts there are the battlements planner, the tower planner, the tower roofs and the spiral staircase planner.
Frequently asked questions
How do I build a castle in Minecraft?
Choose an example or a floor plan and change the sizes. First mark the centre and the tower centres from the table. Then build layer 1 all the way round and go up from there. Dig the moat only when the walls are standing.
How many blocks do I need for a castle?
The counter shows building blocks, water and earth separately. A hill costs a lot of earth; set Hill to 0 if you build on an existing hill. With 'Add to my list' you see everything in stacks and shulker boxes.
How do I make machicolations?
Machicolations are upside-down stairs under the edge of the wall. Place them while looking at the top half of a block, so they go upside down. Turn them on in the tool under the curtain wall.
Which towers look best?
Round towers with a cone roof suit French and fairy-tale castles. Square towers with battlements suit English and Italian castles. A Dutch water castle suits round towers with a spire or cone roof.
Can I make a working drawbridge and portcullis?
The tool draws the drawbridge and portcullis in one position: lowered or raised. They do not move by themselves. If you want them to work, you can rebuild them yourself with redstone and pistons.
Can I build this castle in Bedrock?
The layer-by-layer build plan works in every edition, including Bedrock. The .schem file is for Minecraft Java Edition, with WorldEdit or Litematica.