An abundance of natural resources made this site, two hours south of Paris, worthy of the ‘biggest archeological experiment in the world’.

The Irish get to work in all areas.  Quarrying: all building stone is hand quarried.

Guédelon stone worker Shannon pegs and feathers a block of limestone

Cutting the blocks for the crenelation of the castle tower cut by eye and hand

These are moved by a medieval wheelbarrow, which has fantastic leverage..

But by far the most popular sight for tourists is the ‘squirrel wheel’.

This is a winch, human powered, for raising stone to the tower high above.

See Tom on the brake (right) in case the ‘squirrel’ runs out of breath.

Up above Lu Lu receives the block through a trapdoor in the tower scaffold

Master mason Florian invites the Irish to build a dry stone wall.  This is skill sharing, as normally at Guédelon the ‘pierre seche’ (dry stone method)  is not practiced.

Our stone arrives by horse. The geese are not one bit happy. The new wall is next to their house and they make a big fuss.

Up on the castle roof:

Timber scaffold has been proven 5 times more load bearing than the modern day stuff

700 year old plumb line systems seem to work just fine too

Some things don’t really change

We enjoyed every minute

Goodbye to Guédelon for now