Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-15888551-20130819093722/@comment-13446185-20130824184404

Th3Antioch wrote: I think before the great collapse, Winterhold wouldn't have needed walls because there were so many mages there to protect the city.

ZakMarcus wrote:Stone and mortar walls in those kinds of constantly extreme weather conditions require a lot of upkeep. It would only take about 35-50 years for them to collapse I find it hard to believe that the greatest city in Skyrim wouldn't have a wall just because it had a few mages, plus in TES: Arena it is shown having a wall.

Regarding how long the walls would stay up you must take into account the fact that the walls of the ancient Nordic cities, for example Bromjunaar, still have there walls almost 100% intact most of these areas have been abandoned for around 4500 years. My guess is that these walls have some type of magic keeping them so intact, but if that is the case wouldn't the Winterhold walls still be there as it contains most of Skyrim's mages.

Lets pretend the walls did collapse, wouldn't there still be rubble were they fell, or wouldn't the city tried to have salvage the pieces to create new things.

The most believable answer to why Winterhold is walless (created a new word) is that Bethesda ran out of time, or they were being lazy.