Winterfell

Winterfell is the ancestral castle and seat of House Stark, the great stronghold of The North and the traditional residence of its rulers. It stands at the convergence of the kingsroad and the road running west to the coast, roughly at the heart of the northern lands. For thousands of years it was the seat of the Kings in the North, and after Aegon's Conquest the seat of the Wardens of the North.

Winterfell is one of the oldest castles in Westeros, said to have been raised by Brandon the Builder, the legendary founder of House Stark, in the Age of Heroes. It is a vast, sprawling fortress rather than a single keep, its great granite walls enclosing many towers, halls, yards, and a godswood of ancient weirwoods.

Geography

The castle is built over natural hot springs, and scalding water is piped through its walls to warm the rooms and keep the godswood green even in the deep of winter, an engineering marvel attributed to Brandon the Builder. Two great curtain walls, with a wide moat between them, ring the castle.

Within the walls stand the Great Keep, the Great Hall, the Guards Hall, the bell tower, the broken tower (the First Keep, abandoned and ruined), the library tower, the maester's turret, and the crypts. The godswood, several acres of old forest with a heart tree of weirwood, lies within the walls and is central to the Starks' worship of the old gods. Beneath the castle lie the crypts, where the Kings in the North and Lords of Winterfell are entombed with stone likenesses and iron swords across their laps.

The winter town lies just outside the castle walls, mostly empty in summer but filling with smallfolk seeking shelter when winter comes.

History

Winterfell has been the seat of House Stark since the Age of Heroes, through the long centuries when the Starks ruled the North as kings. When Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt, submitted to Aegon the Conqueror rather than see his people burned, the Starks became Wardens of the North under the Iron Throne but kept Winterfell as their seat.

In the story

Winterfell opens A Song of Ice and Fire as the home of Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, his wife Catelyn, and their children. When King Robert travels there to name Ned his Hand of the King, the family is scattered to the winds. Bran is crippled after being thrown from a tower window, an event that sets much of the story in motion.

During the War of the Five Kings, the castle is seized by Theon Greyjoy, who burns part of it; it is later sacked and largely destroyed when forces of House Bolton turn on the ironborn. The Boltons later take Winterfell as their own seat in ruin, and it becomes the center of intrigue and the planned campaign of Stannis Baratheon against them.

Rulers

Winterfell is held by House Stark, Kings in the North in ancient times and Wardens of the North afterward. Its lords are bound to the worship of the old gods and to the keeping of the Wall and the North against threats from beyond.