Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After yesterday's problems we hoped for a good start to the day but no sooner are we up than Nick feels the onset of a Migraine. Back to bed for an hour.
All well it's a 30 mile drive through pretty countryside, all arable here, and we wonder if there is a competition with lots of haystack scultped into tractors, happy men and, the winner for us, a massive combine harvester. Soon we see signs for our destination; Chantier Medeival Guedalon.
We first learned of Guedelon on a TV series. It is a 25 year project to build a medeival castle from scratch using the crafts and methods of the time.
An area of woods was cleared and rock quarried from the site to build the castle. As we see it, there is the main living quarters almost complete and one tower also nearing completion, with other towers, curtain walls and battlements still under construction. It is already an imposing structure, still clad in places with timbered scaffold cantilevered out of the pitlog holes in the walls. Beside the largest tower is a treadmill, a wheel about 12 feet in diameter which two men walk inside, turning a rope drum to hoist stones and mortar barrels to the top.
All around the main building are the various craft houses; stone masons working to wood templates; kilners firing lime for the mortar makers; a ropewalk where rope is spun, to be used for lashings, belts, slings, holding up shelves and other things; blacksmiths making and maintaining the builders' tools, forging brackets and hinges and nails, working in a dark smithy so they can gauge the temperature of the metal by its colour; basketmakers - baskets were used for carrying everything from wheat to mortar, storage, and protection of clay bottles; a saw pit and carpenter's shop; stables and henhouses. All of these are spread around the woods, all constructed in timber with shingles rooves.
In the main castle courtyard is the mint where coins were struck. On the ground floor is the cellar and kitchen. Ali follows the narrow staircases to the master's chambers with barrel vaulted ceilings and plastered cold walls.
It's a fascinating project which, apparently, will never be completed. Once the castle is finished work will start on millstreams, flour and paper mills, drop mills and other ideas.
Leaving the workers to carry on, we drive 11 miles to an aire at Saint Fargeau where there is a stunning genuine chateau. As we swelter in the 36C, reading the Guedelon guidebook, we learn that the the idea of building a 'new' castle was inspired by the one here, and many of its features are included in the plans for Guedelon.
- comments