The Gatehouse
Most who come to Winterfell come in this way. Two crenellated bulwarks of grey granite stand over the outer arch. Beyond it a drawbridge spans the moat, and past the moat the inner gate waits under a wall higher than the first.
The castle guard keeps the gate by day and by night. A rider gives his name under the arch and waits there while word goes up to the keep. Torches burn in iron brackets on either side, and on a winter night they are the last light at the end of the road.
Other gates pierce the walls. The Hunter’s Gate lets riders out to the fields and the wolfswood without passing through the town, and the East Gate looks toward the kingsroad. This one is the gate of arrivals.
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The Walls
Two rings of grey granite, the outer eighty feet high and the inner more than a hundred, with a moat between them.
The East Gate
The gate on the eastern side of Winterfell, opening toward the kingsroad for riders bound north to the Wall or south.
The Hunter’s Gate
The gate on the far side of Winterfell from the main gate, opening straight onto fields with the wolfswood beyond.
Wintertown
The town outside Winterfell’s gates, four houses in five empty in summer, full when the snows drive the smallfolk in.
In the journey: The Gates