Friends build real castle from scratch with simple tools only

Reality can beat the building frenzy in Minecraft, as seen in Guédelon Castle: in 1997, in a forest two hours south of Paris, a team of master-builders and enthusiasts began building a medieval castle using only the technology and materials of the Middle Ages.

25 years later, the great tower stands at 15 meters (49 feet), and the chapel with its cross-ribbed vault, are finished and plenty of amenities have been added like water cisterns, bread ovens, stone hand mills, and an onsite water mill.

The project began when two brothers who had just spent 20 years restoring an abandoned chateau they had bought for about $1000 (a few thousand francs) decided to buy a piece of land nearby to build a castle from scratch. They chose a former sandstone quarry because of the abundance of local natural resources onsite: stone, water, wood, sand (for mortar), clay (for roof tiles), and ochre (for pigment).

A team of quarrymen, stonemasons, carpenter-joiners, woodcutters, blacksmiths, tilers, rope makers, and carters began work on Guédelon Castle in July of 1997, eager to work together to revive heritage craft skills and shed light on the world of medieval construction.

Without electricity nor modern tools like mechanical cranes, the team relies on cart horses for all on-site transport of materials and giant wooden treadmill winches - basically, huge human hamster wheels powered by humans-, to do the heavy lifting of stones or beams.

[Cooper]

My favourite thing about this project is that you can really see how towns and economies would spring up around castles as they were under construction. These guys are all here for the building the castle, so you’d immediately have the smith, the wheelwright, the mason, the quarry, the carpenters, potters, coopers, ropemakers, since you’ve got carthorses you’d have stables, you’d get eating and drinking establishments for all the workers so taverns would pop up, farmers would move to the area to start supplying the whole thing, suddenly cattle and sheep will start appearing, markets for everyone not directly involved with the castle construction, until the day the castles done and it’s got a fully functioning village support system around it

[BrokenCurtain]

I wouldn't describe this as "friends building a castle". XD

Guédelon Castle is the result of a serious experimental archeology project, probably the biggest scientific experiment of that kind in the world.

But yeah, the people working on it probably forged some strong friendships over the years. It takes some genuine passion to work on something like this, and that connects people.

[LinusIslamTips]

This feels like actual fulfilling work.

[marcboblee]

As a builder, I find this absolutely fascinating....and a stark reminder of the artisan skills we have lost...many thanks for posting this video....much appreciated....

[padonker]

What people may not realize is that this is a huge commercial success. Guedelon generates an order of magnitude more money from visitors than a comparable "real" castle in a remote place in the French countryside. Just because you can see it being built. It makes good economic sense. And it's a warning to Barcelona to never finish the Sagrada Familia.

[nutsbutdum]

This castle is going to confuse archeologists a thousand years from now.

[Haz_wizZYT]

Never knew there was a community that brings back the medieval time. It seems very interesting than most modern stuff

[greenwave]

That's cool to hear that the team restoring Notre Dame learned their skills from the people building Guedelon. Also, cool to know that we have possibly ten more years left to get over there and build a small part of this wonder!

[Ethanooooool]

I was born pretty much same time as the castle and still live near it. I just go every 2 or 3 years since i was born and see it grow as the same time as me, great memories :)

[soulextracter]

I would argue that it is good that it takes such a long time to build this castle. Mainly because I think most tourists who comes there, comes to see not only the castle but the processes behind it. When the castle is finished, there will only be another castle there, but right now it's a medieval construction site which is far more interesting if you think about it!

[haemmertime]

I remember first seeing this in a documentary about 15 years ago and been asking myself since then how the project is doing.
Nice to see a lot of progress, only thing left to do is visiting at some point.

[rennor]

I love how a medieval castle has more aesthetics to it in terms of design and shape than many modern skyscrapers and city buildings.
We may have moved to a more advanced era, but we've lost our artistic taste which made many of those old buildings breathtaking even centuries later.

[FruitingPlanet]

Always great to see an update on Guédelon, despite the pandemic they made quite a bit of progress in the last two years.
You even showed two of the stones i made, when i was working there for a bit in 2012 :)

[A.Mere.Creator]

24:43 "we are not here to collect data on the accident rate of a 13th century construction site" 😂

[Mondoblasto]

Just the fact that artisans working on Notre Dame were able to go to a site right in France to pick up information that was gleaned from the work being done there is immeasurably invaluable.

[denn]

This castle, even if it is still not done, is worthy of being a historical learning material and tourist spot. I mean, you can literally learn and integrate into the world of medieval period just by watching the workshops do their work. I would love to visit this place, both when they're still building the castle, and when it is finished

[samchaleau]

It's awesome to see the French are so proud of their heritage and history! It's a beautiful building and a testament to all those involved in the project. Looking forward to visiting one day soon!

[TheGameLecturer]

I went there when I was a kid, and two other times since, what's amazing to me is how the older parts have aged to look so similar to some "real" castles we have in France (and how quick the new parts just look ancient). It means, not only their work is really acurate, but also how durable this type of castles are !

[AngelsArmour]

One of the coolest projects of the past century

[BeNdEification]

Damn, this video has so interesting background noises. I can't get enough of hearing the stones being cut in the distance, that metal clank is very satisfying. Medieval Castle Construction ASMR when?