The Walls
Winterfell is closed in by two walls of granite. The outer stands eighty feet high, with guard turrets along its length. Inside it lies a wide moat, and inside the moat the inner wall rises past a hundred feet, set with more than thirty watchtowers.
The plan is old and plain. Whoever wins the outer wall has won a strip of ground and a moat to cross, under a wall that is higher still and manned from thirty towers.
The North says Brandon the Builder raised them. Whether he did, or whether a hundred lords added stone to stone over thousands of years, the walls are the first thing a traveller sees of Winterfell, grey above the snow, and the last he loses sight of when he rides away.
Read next
The Gatehouse
The main gate of Winterfell, where the road from the winter town crosses the moat and passes under both walls.
The Hunter’s Gate
The gate on the far side of Winterfell from the main gate, opening straight onto fields with the wolfswood beyond.
The East Gate
The gate on the eastern side of Winterfell, opening toward the kingsroad for riders bound north to the Wall or south.
Brandon the Builder
The founder of House Stark in the Age of Heroes, said to have raised Winterfell and the Wall with giants’ help.
In the journey: The Gates