• Question: why do castles and church walls have buttresses on the outside?

    Asked by periodictable.com to Andres, Andy, Emma, Shahil, Sheryl, Zoe on 13 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Zoe Lonsdale

      Zoe Lonsdale answered on 13 Mar 2017:

      Buttresses were used to provide additional support to the walls. Churches very often have vaulted ceilings which are heavy and want to push the walls outwards. The buttresses prevent this from happening by allow the load to be transmitted more directly

    • Photo: Shahil Juggernath

      Shahil Juggernath answered on 15 Mar 2017:

      This was smart engineering from old engineers!

      These are used for support. But even back then, engineers knew that you need to make even your support structures look good.

      So they came up with the idea of buttresses! Awesome!

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