The highest of the seven levels of Minas Tirith was strongly fortified, and could be reached only by the long ramp that ran up to the Seventh Gate. Beyond that gate, the High Court was paved in white stone, with a green lawn and a fountain playing from a pool in its centre. Within that lawn the White Trees of Minas Tirith had once grown, but by the end of the Third Age only the withered Dead Tree remained. The High Court and its Citadel were watched over by the black-clad companies of the Guards of the Citadel.
Above even the High Court stood the White Tower, holding the thrones of Gondor's Kings and Stewards, and rising some three hundred feet (or about ninety metres) above the courtyard below. This White Tower was added to the Citadel in III 1900, when the Kings still ruled in Gondor, and rebuilt in III 2698 by Steward Ecthelion I. It was within this shining Tower of Ecthelion above the High Court that Gandalf and Pippin met with Steward Denethor after their arrival in Minas Tirith.
Notes
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Minas Anor (the city that would later be named Minas Tirith) was built at the beginning of the realm of Gondor, which was founded in II 3320. We do not know for sure that the High Court existed at this time, though the balance of probabilities seems to suggest that it did. Isildur planted the first White Tree of the City after the War of the Last Alliance, which at least strongly implies that the High Court was in existence at the beginning of the Third Age.
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