[HN Gopher] Building a Medieval Castle from Scratch
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Building a Medieval Castle from Scratch
Author : CharlesW
Score : 131 points
Date : 2025-01-23 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.guedelon.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.guedelon.fr)
| ortusdux wrote:
| Tom Scott visited the site to try out their treadmill crane
| system:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk9v3m7Slv8
| bmelton wrote:
| Ruth Goodman has a phenomenal series about living in historic
| times on BBC. She's "lived" in several eras as early as back to
| the 1620s, and I've enjoyed literally all of them including the
| one she did from Guedelon, entitled Secrets of the Castle.
|
| Some of them are available for streaming, some appear lost to
| time (no pun intended) but this one appears to be available on
| YouTube
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL72jhKwankOiwI5zt6lC3...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_Castle
| Syonyk wrote:
| The entire "BBC Farm series" is worth watching:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_historic_farm_series
|
| Ruth Goodman's shows are fun to watch, because regardless of
| what she's doing, how covered in grime she is, what era she's
| living and working in, she exudes _such_ a sense of joy, and a
| general giddy, "I cannot _believe_ that I get to do this as my
| job! " attitude.
|
| It's like watching the last couple seasons of Mythbusters.
| There's no doubt that they are having a grand time of it.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Could you expand on the last point? Was there a change from
| the initial seasons? I have only casually watched the show,
| but everyone seemed to be having a great time, just doing
| weird engineering things with someone else footing the bill.
| Syonyk wrote:
| The first couple seasons were Jamie and Adam, with a fairly
| minimal film crew, "doing stuff." Going to random stores to
| get things and talk to people, and generally having a good
| time doing it on a shoestring budget. The show largely
| focused on the process - _how_ the rigs were built. What
| sort of small scale testing was done in the shop. The tools
| and processes they used to test this sort of stuff.
|
| The mid-seasons added the build team (Keri, Grant (RIP) and
| Tory), and started what was, in my opinion, an unwelcome
| turn to "mainline television." They started adding more
| myths, more animations to explain things, and a lot of
| "Here's what we're going to do after the commercial!" and
| "Now that we're back from the commercial, here's what we've
| done!" sort of repeated filler - to the point that there
| was some subreddit that made versions without the filler
| and repeated content. It was a lot more "Here's the myth,
| here's the test" sort of TV, and mostly ignored the
| process.
|
| The build team got along well enough for the first few
| seasons of it, but towards the later seasons with them, the
| tension and dislike between various people was obvious even
| on air. Kari and Tory couldn't stand each other, and the
| "pranks" on Tory went from "entertaining" to "genuinely
| mean."
|
| The last few seasons were back to Adam and Jamie, focusing
| on the build, except with a budget and name recognition
| that allowed them to do basically anything they wanted -
| and you could tell they were loving it.
|
| I know there's some contract drama and such behind the
| scenes as well, but the above is how it felt watching it.
| The last two seasons are easily my favorites, because
| they'd worked out how to do the show well, and they were
| able to test a lot of impressive-scale things that wouldn't
| have been an option earlier in the show.
| atombender wrote:
| Big fan of the British farm series, which is fantastic, and I
| love Ruth Goodman and the rest of the gang. I've seen all the
| farm ones, but somehow I missed this show. Thanks for the tip,
| this looks exciting!
| mobymoney wrote:
| Who is paying forty master builders? Some billionaire probably.
| number6 wrote:
| Interestingly not:
|
| https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Guyot
|
| The son of a small business owner developed a passion for
| history, historic preservation, and horses from a young age.
| Trained in the military as a competition rider, he opened a
| riding stable at the Chateau de Valencay in the Indre
| department in 1972. In 1975, Guyot and his brother Jacques, who
| was four years younger, purchased the Chateau de La Roche in
| the Sologne region, and in 1979, they acquired the dilapidated
| Chateau de Saint-Fargeau in the Yonne department for a minimal
| amount. After failing with a "high culture" festival, Guyot
| succeeded in financing the castle's restoration through large
| historical spectacles involving the local population. The
| castle grounds also house a collection of old steam
| locomotives.
|
| In the mid-1990s, he conceived the Guedelon project: since
| 1997, about 60 employees and 200-300 annual volunteers have
| been building a small fortress in 13th-century style, located
| 40 kilometers southwest of Auxerre - using exclusively medieval
| techniques. The planned construction time is 25 years. This
| project has also become financially self-sustaining.
| nestorD wrote:
| France is not big on billionaires pet project... Also, a lot of
| the hard work is done by volunteers!
| mkaic wrote:
| This reminded me of Bishop's Castle in Colorado, USA -- an
| incredible project built almost entirely by one man (who sadly
| died last year) working on it nonstop for 40 years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Castle
| bwb wrote:
| I visited this site once with some friends on a road trip...
| the guy building it (Bishop) started screaming the N-word at
| some black bikers and then calmly told them he wasn't racist
| and made some long rant about the government. We split very
| quickly as the dude was racist and crazy.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Sounds like some Terry Davis level differences.
| mkaic wrote:
| Damn, I had no idea. That's really unfortunate.
| kergonath wrote:
| Interesting, I did not know about this one!
|
| It does sound a bit like the Cheval's Ideal Palace, well worth
| a visit as well (and also in France like Guedelon, though not
| in the same area):
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| Reminds me of Coral Castle in Miami-Dade, Florida, US, also
| built by one man.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle
| wiredfool wrote:
| This is well worth a visit if you're remotely near the area. We
| visited a few years back, and the kids thought it might be worth
| going back for a second day.
|
| One bit of interest -- if constructed back in the 1300s, it would
| have probably taken 4 years or so. Funding is the biggest
| difference, historically it would have been built from a rich
| patron's pockets with no desire to wait 25 years for the
| protection and image it would provide.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Another important difference is that in the 1300s the
| overwhelming majority of Europe's population were farmers.
| Sure, they did a lot of things besides farming, but you could
| get a lot of workers for cheap during summer and winter when
| they weren't needed on the fields.
| jccooper wrote:
| They used to keep copies of their really detailed newsletter on
| the website. Seems to have disappeared. But the last time
| archive.org saw it is here:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201030183911/https://www.guede...
|
| Dunno if they still keep up the newsletter (there's a signup
| form) in the same manner.
| surfingdino wrote:
| Wow. I love this! Not least because this is so incomprehensible
| to the British property developers on so many levels...
| davio wrote:
| They tried making a castle inspired by this near Branson,
| Missouri that failed:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_Medieval_Fortress
| emarthinsen wrote:
| This is great. We need to keep these building techniques alive -
| or, at least, documented. There is always going to be a need for
| restoration reasons, but I'd like to see some of the old
| techniques become mainstream again. There are century-old
| structures that we can tour, but in another century, there will
| be no modern buildings still standing.
| Swizec wrote:
| > but in another century, there will be no modern buildings
| still standing
|
| You sure? Many modern buildings are already 100 years old and
| in active use.
|
| Empire State Building, for example, was built in 1930. Chrysler
| Building is from 1928. White House is from 1800.
|
| I think we'll be fine. Percentage wise we might end up keeping
| more modern buildings than we did of the very old ones.
|
| My mom's socialist style block of flats (in Slovenia) is from
| 1962 - 63 years old - and people keep living here and
| maintaining the structure just fine. Can easily imagine it
| sticking around for a long while yet.
| Suppafly wrote:
| > There are century-old structures that we can tour, but in
| another century, there will be no modern buildings still
| standing.
|
| That's ridiculous.
| bwb wrote:
| I got to visit this a few years ago, and it was amazing. I can't
| wait to go back and take my son :)
| fsagx wrote:
| Anyone who's been there -- How would you recommend getting there
| from Paris without a car? the closest train station I saw was
| 25km.
| frutiger wrote:
| In keeping with the theme - on horse or foot.
| ucarion wrote:
| You could rent a car out of Auxerre, but don't count on being
| able to get by in rural l'Yonne without one.
| newsuser wrote:
| Haven't tried it, but it seems you could get, within 6 km, to
| Saint-Saveur-de-Puisaye - on bus 861 (need to call them) from
| Auxerre Saint-Gervais which is reachable by train from Paris.
| ttoinou wrote:
| I hitchhike all the time in France and it works great, locals
| are usually nice and I never wait more than 10 mins (but I'm
| french so IDK how it would work without the native language)
| u-Squared wrote:
| the more you learn about cybersecurity, the more you would want
| to live there
| eniac111 wrote:
| We have a similar project in Bulgaria, but it's a huge ponzy
| scheme
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(page generated 2025-01-23 23:00 UTC)