Castles and abbeys

[french frank]

This was a ruin when I was a child:

[Hornspieler]

This was a ruin when I was a child:

It still is, but has now been completely ruined.

[Flosshilde]

Lindisfarne wasn't a ruin when Lutyens converted it into a holiday home - I think it was still habitable, although essentially a fortress with accommodation. Bamburgh Castle near by was renovated & rebuilt in the 19th century. Most castles still used as homes have never been ruins, but have been continually developed & adapted. Abbeys & monasteries of course fell into disuse after the dissolution & were either sold off & converted into houses or fell into ruin (& often used as convenient sources of building material). Some, like Fountains at Studley Royal & Rievaulx at Duncombe Park, were incorporated into a classical 18th century landscape as romantic focal points.
Which is why people like to visit ruins - romantic associations. The associations might have more to do with Hollywood films than the reality of Medieval life, but since Vanbrugh tried to persuade the Duchess of Marlborough to preserve, or at least mark the site of, the ruins of Woodstock Palace ruins have been valued & visited both because of their pictorial qualities and their associations with people or events.

[EdgeleyRob]

Lindisfarne wasn't a ruin when Lutyens converted it into a holiday home - I think it was still habitable, although essentially a fortress with accommodation. Bamburgh Castle near by was renovated & rebuilt in the 19th century. Most castles still used as homes have never been ruins, but have been continually developed & adapted. Abbeys & monasteries of course fell into disuse after the dissolution & were either sold off & converted into houses or fell into ruin (& often used as convenient sources of building material). Some, like Fountains at Studley Royal & Rievaulx at Duncombe Park, were incorporated into a classical 18th century landscape as romantic focal points.
Which is why people like to visit ruins - romantic associations. The associations might have more to do with Hollywood films than the reality of Medieval life, but since Vanbrugh tried to persuade the Duchess of Marlborough to preserve, or at least mark the site of, the ruins of Woodstock Palace ruins have been valued & visited both because of their pictorial qualities and their associations with people or events.

I've been to Bamburgh Castle a few times over the years,it's my favourite.
To me it almost seems as if it's grown out of the ground rather than been built.
Not my photos,I haven't any as good as these.

[french frank]

It still is, but has now been completely ruined.

I think it's okay - if it hadn't been restored it would all have completely collapsed by now and the stones would have ended up being taken to mend garden walls.

[Flosshilde]

I agree that Bamburgh is superbly romantic. The keep is Norman, but the rest is, I believe, largely 19th century.

[Flosshilde]

Corfe Castle, Dorset


Shall I get my paints out and finish restoring it?

HS

That's the privilege of the painter - they can paint what they believe should be there, not what is actually there

[Alain Maréchal]

You could always build your own...

http://www.guedelon.fr/