Guédelon, France

In the heart of France, in northern Burgundy, a team of fifty master-builders have taken on an extraordinary challenge: building a castle using medieval techniques and materials.

In a once disused quarry, surrounded by woodland and all the natural materials required for the construction – stone, wood, earth, sand, clay – day after day, in the presence of thousands of visitors, the quarrymen, stonemasons, woodcutters, carpenter-joiners, blacksmiths, tile makers, carters and rope makers are building a castle from scratch.

Inspired by the past, this building site is also of great relevance to the 21st century.

Guédelon is of scientific, historic and educational interest; it is a tourist destination, and, above all, it is a collective venture.

Throughout the seasons, Guédelon’s workers rise to this extraordinary challenge. Visitors from across the globe have witnessed the building of the curtain walls, the Great Hall’s roof timbers, the antechamber and its mural paintings, the castle kitchen and storeroom, the rib-vaulted guardrooms and the crenelated wall-walk, on this, the only construction site of its kind in the world.