My Castles

Of course buildings shape the imaginations of those who dwell in them.  The bedroom window through which you watched the stars as a child will always shape the way you see the world.

And some buildings can become the home of your imagination, even if they’re far away. 

As a boy, I was obsessed with castles.  They offered my imagination that far off dwelling place; from their battlements I could gaze out over vistas fantastic and historical.
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These are the castles to which I have a personal link: in some small way, they shaped me.

Exin Castillos

An old toy, a lego-knock off, made in Spain in the 1960’s and now discontinued. 

They were kind of cheaply made – the bricks didn’t fit as snugly as legos, and so even the most solidly constructed walls looked a little rough, with loose stones and gaps and cracks between them.  Which was perfectly appropriate for the castles I built with them: every castle was part ruin from the moment it was built, weathered and old.

There’s a bit of a subculture online of people who’ve built amazing castles with the old bricks they’ve saved from childhood or purchased on ebay.

A company called Exin Castillos: New Generation has just begun selling the blocks again, 3-D printing bricks following the old models.  This is what the can be done with 'em.  

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Burg Plesse

An old castle, whose foundations date back to the 11th century. 

It is outside the town of Bovenden, near Gottingen.  After the war, my father’s family had been resettled in the area (their hometown, a small German community in the Slovakian mountains called Hochwies, had been taken over by the Soviets, and the entire German population was evacuated and resettled to Germany). 

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My father worked as a miller’s apprentice on the estate of the Graf von Hardenberg nearby, and in his spare time would hike the mountain up to the Plesse, along with his friend Gerhardt and his dog Lumpi.

​When I was thirteen we visited one of my father’s sisters, who still lived nearby.  We hiked up to the great round tower of the Plesse, and looked out at the valley below.  ​​

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Burg Hardenberg

Built at the end of the 11th century by the archdiocese of Mainz to protect local trade routes.  Emperor Henry IV once sought refuge there, so the story goes. 

In the 15th century, another local story has it, rival lords from the neighboring Burg Plesse launched a surprise night attack.  The attack failed, however, when a wild boar, disturbed by the sneaking soldiers, awoke the inhabitants of the castle with his load grunts – and the attack was beaten back.  Since, the Lords of Hardenberg emblazoned a wild boar on their coat of arms. 
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This is the ruin that sheltered my father after the war.  After the relocation from Hochwies, my father’s entire family were quartered in the stables on the estate of the Graf von Hardenberg.  My father loved to hike through the ruins.  He told me that he secretly buried his German army uniform and rifle somewhere in the old courtyard of the ruined castle. 

Who knows? They might still be there today.  Castles have a knack for weathering time.