Comments on: 13th C-style castle built by hand

13th C-style castle built by hand

stbalbach — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:46:42 -0800

In 1996 Frenchman Michel Guyot set out to build a XIII century castle the medieval way¹ -- using hammers and chisels to carve the stones, horses to cart the rock and no power tools. Ten years later it is one third completed and if all goes well will be finished by 2023, after which the plan is to build an abbey, then a village.²

1. Guyot, Michael (1996). "Guedelon: Chantier Medieval". Online project home page. Multi-lingual.
2. Doland, Angela (August 31, 2006). " Stone by stone, craftsmen build medieval-style castle". Associated Press, via CNN.

By: fatbobsmith

fatbobsmith — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:02:19 -0800

Also of note is Bishop Castle in Beulah, Colorado. One man has been building it himself, stone by stone, for over 30 years. It's quite impressive.

By: furtive

furtive — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:08:00 -0800

Dude, you can hyperlink inline.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:10:24 -0800

Reminds me a bit of the Coral Castle.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:19:07 -0800

Dude, you can hyperlink inline. Silent prediction fullfilled in just two comments! I need to take this winning intuition to Vegas.

By: ?!

?! — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:19:48 -0800

Someone has been writing too many papers of late.

By: ?!

?! — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:22:16 -0800

There are many with such intuition hitchhiking out of Vegas every week, baby. I'll say out loud that style is often commented on more than substance.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:32:23 -0800

I award two style points, one per footnote. But where does the good saint stand on our Wikipedia controversy?

By: ®@

®@ — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:49:47 -0800

I was going to make a snarky comment about how if the olden-days folks had power tools, they would have used them... But after reading that I'm nothing but impressed, and filled with an intense desire to visit. Also, the fact that he's employing people and turning his crazy dream into a massive history lesson is great. I'm stealing this for my blog.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 10:01:14 -0800

This will really confuse future archeologists.

By: jonson

jonson — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 10:13:06 -0800

This moves beyond awesome and into super-awesome territory. Fantastic post!

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 10:53:49 -0800

I was worried about datedness after reading the Anglais version of the web site. It appears to have been last updated depuis 2003. When I switched to Francaise, it seems a bit more up-to-date. Cool link. I'd love to visit, but my 14-year-old would never think it cool enough.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 11:22:10 -0800

This will really confuse future archeologists. And ancient futurologists never saw it coming. I'd love to visit, but my 14-year-old would never think it cool enough. You just have to make up some tripe about it being perfectly aligned with Uranus on every full moon.

By: yeti

yeti — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:04:32 -0800

2023, eh? They should race with Sagrada Familia.

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:04:57 -0800

This is great stuff, thanks.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:06:34 -0800

I have one¹—no, two²—things to say. 1. That guy's crazy as hell, and good for him. 2. Great post construction!

By: QIbHom

QIbHom — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:09:04 -0800

There is also Richard Hurbain, who bought and restored a 14th century castle in France. Smithsonian had an article about him sometime around 1997. I can't find much on the web, but the Smithsonian article is worth looking up at your local library.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 15:53:59 -0800

Sees like the perfect opportunity for those guys that like to reconstruct castle-smashing trebuchets.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 16:53:43 -0800

Dear God¹ 1. Blasdel, Frederick (September 3, 2006) "It's way better than useless motherfucking caret links to Wikipedia articles". Me, via myself. Also I.

By: rom1

rom1 — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 09:42:09 -0800

Reminds me of Ferdinand Cheval's Ideal Castle which I visited a couple of months ago... Impressive!