This reminds me of a road trip I took with a girlfriend in 2010 or so. We drove south out of St. Louis, MO, going nowhere in particular, and ended up near the Arkansas border. I could have sworn I was dreaming, but nearby there was a bona-fide 13th-century French castle under construction, using period-appropriate tools and techniques, in the middle of the Ozarks!
It was absolutely surreal. There was a working farm to grow food for the laborers, stone was sourced from a nearby quarry, there was a smithy on-site, and even some tools were original to the period and were imported from France.
I learned a great deal from reading a novel: Pillars of the Earth. This book is about construction of a medieval cathedral and spans generations.
I really enjoyed the book when I read it as a young person. Now that I'm older, I have some issues with the writing (detailed portrayals of violence). Just realize it is R rated stuff - similar to GoT. On the plus side, you will definitely learn about architecture :)
Indeed! I just went and volunteered last year (first trip to Europe)! You can do a 7 day rotating internship with them (provided you have a good base in french). They really let you do almost everything, I worked in masonry, carpentry, tile making, grout making, etc. They are a great group and the project is really cool, I made a bunch of friends during my time there too. I strongly recommend the experience.
I'm not sure why this is news but if people are upvoting, great! I'm a huge medeival buff. I first learned about this castle in a very cool documentary on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydoRAbpWfCU&t=714s
This documentary series is part of a larger collection of BBC series in which the cast does accurate historical reenactment of farm work. They're worth seeing and you can find all of them on Youtube or Vimeo.
I grew up in the East of France and Guedelon was a popular field trip destination for school students. I remember going there once in middle school and once in high school.
The workers, architects etc were all very enthusiastic, and boring stuff like medieval masonry, measurement systems, plans etc got really interesting with them.
> Despite all the medieval reenactment, Guédelon is still subject to modern construction regulations. There’s one telephone in the castle, for example – a legal requirement in case of emergency. The wooden scaffold poles are held with modern metal fixings. Some of the cordage, straps and pulleys on the winches are industrially produced. The workers may be dressed in smocks but, as Renucci explains, they have to wear steel-toecapped boots and hard hats (concealed beneath straw hats or a beige cloth). The masons require safety glasses.
There’s a coin and a parchment under one of the initial stones. But yeah, once people forget, there’s going to be this castle 700 years out of the time sequence.
Wow, unusual topic for the front page of HN. I visited about 5 years ago. It was my wife's idea to go (it's quite far from other attractions, so you have to plan a visit), but we both really enjoyed it. The castle is the highlight of course, but there's quite a lot more to the site than that, and it's easy to spend a full day there.
One thing I remember thinking on one of my first trips to Europe was "Why doesn't someone 'restore' a castle to a specific era?" It would be such a cool experience.
Granted, many that are in reasonable shape have evolved over time so doing so would maybe remove a lot of history.... that's not desirable. But there are plenty in ruined states that might be good candidates.
It was such a contrast to where in the US some historical sites are rebuilt wholesale and seeing them operational and alive is a lot of fun.
Many castles have been renovated and restored, some of them to a state close to one period of the past, others with a new style, etc. In France, a whole lot of monuments were restored during the 19th century mainly.
For example the castle of the Dukes of Brittany in Nantes, was renovated in the mid 19th century to remove the modern additions and get it back to its supposed 16th century state (the period when it was actually used by the Dukes of Brittany).
The castle of Belle-Île was also restored, in the 20th century, to its 18th century state, this one entirely through private funds.
Another castle I know well is the Suscinio castle, which was a complete ruin and was restored in the second half of the 20th century, but not to its former state.
And for another restoration effort with yet another kind of result, het Gravensteen in Ghent was restored in the 19th to its supposed 12th century state, but they got it mostly wrong. That's what happened with most restoration efforts during this period, as far as I know.
Today, the most common stance is often to preserve ruins as they are, keep them from degrading further and do the least work possible on them because we are well aware of all the botched restoration efforts of the past.
> One thing I remember thinking on one of my first trips to Europe was "Why doesn't someone 'restore' a castle to a specific era?" It would be such a cool experience.
They are restoring historical sites to specific eras all the time. Not sure how common it is with castles, though.
The way they are doing Guédelon is incredibly expensive: they aren't just restoring to the specs, but they are using period techniques, too. That means it takes longer and has fewer skilled workers available.
(They made some exceptions for modern safety laws.)
Readit News
It was absolutely surreal. There was a working farm to grow food for the laborers, stone was sourced from a nearby quarry, there was a smithy on-site, and even some tools were original to the period and were imported from France.
Just looked it up - I guess it closed down. Too bad, but maybe unsurprising: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/arkansas/ar-ozark-medieval-f...
https://www.guedelon.fr/en/galerie_16.html
I really enjoyed the book when I read it as a young person. Now that I'm older, I have some issues with the writing (detailed portrayals of violence). Just realize it is R rated stuff - similar to GoT. On the plus side, you will definitely learn about architecture :)
>French is the main language spoken on site; for safety reasons, it is important to speak French.
Enjoy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_historic_farm_series
Edit: spent the last hour watching it. Very interesting and worth the watch.
The workers, architects etc were all very enthusiastic, and boring stuff like medieval masonry, measurement systems, plans etc got really interesting with them.
> Despite all the medieval reenactment, Guédelon is still subject to modern construction regulations. There’s one telephone in the castle, for example – a legal requirement in case of emergency. The wooden scaffold poles are held with modern metal fixings. Some of the cordage, straps and pulleys on the winches are industrially produced. The workers may be dressed in smocks but, as Renucci explains, they have to wear steel-toecapped boots and hard hats (concealed beneath straw hats or a beige cloth). The masons require safety glasses.
Granted, many that are in reasonable shape have evolved over time so doing so would maybe remove a lot of history.... that's not desirable. But there are plenty in ruined states that might be good candidates.
It was such a contrast to where in the US some historical sites are rebuilt wholesale and seeing them operational and alive is a lot of fun.
For example the castle of the Dukes of Brittany in Nantes, was renovated in the mid 19th century to remove the modern additions and get it back to its supposed 16th century state (the period when it was actually used by the Dukes of Brittany).
The castle of Belle-Île was also restored, in the 20th century, to its 18th century state, this one entirely through private funds.
Another castle I know well is the Suscinio castle, which was a complete ruin and was restored in the second half of the 20th century, but not to its former state.
And for another restoration effort with yet another kind of result, het Gravensteen in Ghent was restored in the 19th to its supposed 12th century state, but they got it mostly wrong. That's what happened with most restoration efforts during this period, as far as I know.
Today, the most common stance is often to preserve ruins as they are, keep them from degrading further and do the least work possible on them because we are well aware of all the botched restoration efforts of the past.
They are restoring historical sites to specific eras all the time. Not sure how common it is with castles, though.
(They made some exceptions for modern safety laws.)