Crossposting the top post on Lemmy over the past 12 hours.

https://travelfrance.tips/tregastel-castle-chateau-de-costaeres/

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/82084507 Aerial street view: https://goo.gl/maps/cZPWKLRnoxy7ZVg29

This place seems to be a private residence, not available to visit.

Château is not technically accurate: the château is actually a big neo-medieval style manor characteristic of the great summer houses of the late 19th century on the côte de granit rose (pink granite coast).

The building, a voluminous complex resulting from several extensions, is made of pink granite from the quarries of La Clarté, Perros-Guirec district. The roof is slate.

Its interior was designed with reclaimed wood from a three-masted sailing ship beached in the winter of 1896, the Maurice.

The manor was built on an islet bought at the end of the summer of 1892 by Bruno Abakanowicz (also called Bruno Abdank, who a little later - around 1896 - built the Bellevue hotel in Ploumanac'h), engineer and mathematician of Polish origin, from the customs officer René Le Brozec, a Perrosian who cultivated potatoes there and dried lichen and fish. The going rate at the time was 0.25 F per square metre. It was completed around 1896 by the engineer Lanmoniez and the Lannionnais entrepreneur Pierre Le Tensorer.

https://leapcastle.net/

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/881969392 Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/FPbYAAbEdzstab437

The website states that it’s open every day for visits, doesn’t elaborate on ticket info. Proclaims self as “the world’s most haunted castle.”

There are varied accounts as to when exactly the main tower/keep was constructed, ranging anywhere from the 13th century to the late 15th century, but most likely around 1250 AD. It was built by the O'Bannon clan and was originally called "Léim Uí Bhanáin" (as was the fertile land around the castle which was associated with the Bannon clan) or "Leap of the O'Bannons". The O'Bannons were the "secondary chieftains" of the territory and were subject to the ruling O'Carroll clan. There is evidence that it was constructed on the same site as another ancient stone structure, perhaps ceremonial in nature, and that that area has been occupied consistently since at least the Iron Age (500 BCE) and possibly since Neolithic times. The Annals of the Four Masters record that the Earl of Kildare, Gerald FitzGerald, tried unsuccessfully to seize the castle in 1513. Three years later, he attacked the castle again and managed to partially demolish sections of it. However, by 1557, the O'Carrolls had regained possession.

Following the death of Mulrooney O'Carroll in 1532, family struggles plagued the O'Carroll clan. A fierce rivalry for leadership erupted within the family. The bitter fight for power turned brother against brother. One of the brothers was a priest. While he was holding mass for a group of his family (in what is now called the "Bloody Chapel"), his rival brother burst into the chapel, plunged his sword into him and fatally wounded him. The butchered priest fell across the altar and died in front of his family. In 1659, the castle passed by marriage into the ownership of the Darby family, notable members of whom included Vice-Admiral George Darby, Admiral Sir Henry D'Esterre Darby and John Nelson Darby. During the tenure of one Jonathan Charles Darby, séances were held in the castle by his wife Mildred Darby, who was a writer of Gothic novels: this led to publicity about the castle and its ghosts. The central keep was later expanded with significant extensions, but in order to pay for these, rents were raised, and much of the land accompanying the castle was sold. This is one theorised motivation for the burning of the castle during the Irish Civil War in 1922. After its destruction, Mr. Darby obtained a reinstatement estimate from Beckett & Medcalf, surveyors in Dublin, that was issued in September 1922. Confusingly, it gives the address as Leap Castle, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary. The net "Amount of Claim" was £22,684.19.1, equivalent to about €1m in 2018. The claim was settled for a lesser amount. In 1974 the now ruined castle was bought by Australian historian Peter Bartlett, whose mother had been a Banon. Bartlett, together with builder Joe Sullivan, carried out extensive restoration work on the castle up to the time of his death in 1989. Since 1991, the castle has been privately owned by the musician Sean Ryan and his wife Anne, who continue the restoration work.

https://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/olavinlinna

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/11335890 Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/Q7pKKzddW5KE9dK28

Opening hours depend on season. Check here: https://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/olavinlinna/info The middle courtyard has been covered and converted to a stage for plays and opera productions.

The fortress was founded by Erik Axelsson Tott in 1475 under the name Sankt Olofsborg in an effort to profit from the political turmoil following Ivan III's conquest of the Novgorod Republic. It was sited in Savonia so as to lay claim to the Russian side of the border established by the Treaty of Nöteborg.

One of Tott's letters from 1477 includes a passing mention of foreign builders invited to Olofsborg, probably from Reval, where the city fortifications were being extended. It was the first Swedish castle provided with a set of thickset circular towers that could withstand cannon fire. It is not by accident that a network of lakes and waterways forms the setting for the castle, for these would seriously impede a prospective Russian offensive.

The three-towered keep was completed in 1485, and the construction of the outer curtain walls with two towers was initiated immediately. They were completed in 1495. The castle is roughly a truncated rhomboid with keep on the western side of the island and the curtain walls and outer bailey to east. One of the towers of the keep, St. Erik's Tower, has a bad foundation and has since collapsed. One of the towers of Bailey, the Thick Tower, exploded in the 18th century. A bastion has been built on its place. The castle was converted into a Vaubanesque fort in the late 18th century with bastions.

Olofsborg withstood several sieges by the Russians during the First and Second Russian-Swedish wars. A brisk trade developed under the umbrella of the castle towards the end of the 16th century, giving birth to the town of Savonlinna, which was chartered in 1639.

While the castle was never captured by force, its garrison agreed to terms of surrender twice; first to invading Russians on 28 July 1714 and the second time on 8 August 1743, with the latter conflict's peace treaty in form of the Treaty of Åbo leading to the castle and the entire region being seceded to Empress Elizabeth of Russia. During the Russian era Alexander Suvorov personally inspected rearmament of the fortress.

Credit to and more photos found on the Fediverse here: https://mstdn.social/@Joletaxi@mastodonapp.uk/110781591243610371

https://herstmonceux-castle.com/

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8236206 Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/MsWfcWNUqaTtJitw8

It seems to be open most days 10am-7pm, hosts occasional public events, and is available for lease for weddings, photography, and corporate events.

he first written evidence of the existence of the Herst settlement appears in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book which reports that one of William's closest supporters granted tenancy of the manor at Herst to a man named 'Wilbert'. By the end of the twelfth century, the family at the manor house at Herst had considerable status. Written accounts mention a lady called Idonea de Herst, who married a Norman nobleman named Ingelram de Monceux. Around this time, the manor began to be called the "Herst of the Monceux", a name that eventually became Herstmonceux.

A descendant of the Monceux family, Roger Fiennes, was ultimately responsible for the construction of Herstmonceux Castle in the County of Sussex. Sir Roger was appointed Treasurer of the Household of Henry VI of England and needed a house fitting a man of his position, so construction of the castle on the site of the old manor house began in 1441. It was this position as treasurer which enabled him to afford the £3,800 construction of the original castle.

In 1541, Sir Thomas Fiennes, Lord Dacre, was tried for murder and robbery of the King's deer after his poaching exploits on a neighboring estate resulted in the death of a gamekeeper. He was convicted and hanged as a commoner, and the Herstmonceux estate was temporarily confiscated by Henry VIII of England, but was restored to the Fiennes family during the reign of one of Henry's children.

The profligacy of the 15th Baron Dacre, heir to the Fiennes family, forced him to sell in 1708 to George Naylor, a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn in London. Bethaia Naylor, who became the heiress of Herstmonceux on the death of her brother's only daughter, married Francis Hare and produced a son, Francis, who inherited in turn, his mother's property. The castle eventually came into the possession of Robert Hare-Naylor, who, upon the insistence of his second wife, Henrietta Henckell, followed the architect Samuel Wyatt's advice to reduce the Castle to a picturesque ruin by demolishing the interior. Thomas Lennard, 17th Baron Dacre, was sufficiently exercised as to commission James Lamberts Jnr of Lewes (1741–1799) to record the building in 1776. The castle was dismantled in 1777 leaving the exterior walls standing and remained a ruin until the early 20th century.

Radical restoration work was undertaken by Colonel Claude Lowther in 1913 to transform the ruined building into a residence and, based on a design by the architect, Walter Godfrey, this work was completed by Sir Paul Latham in 1933. The existing interiors largely date from that period, incorporating architectural antiques from England and France. The one major change in planning was the combination of the four internal courtyards into one large one. The restoration work, regarded as the apex of Godfrey's architectural achievement, was described by the critic Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as executed 'exemplarily'.

http://www.burg-maus.de/

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/884671476 Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/XsWJfaLYeJ5wpdE88

There seems to be a ton of opportunities for visiting, from fairytale book readings to "moonlight wine tastings". You'd need to translate it to figure it out: http://www.burg-maus.de/burg/Aktuelles.htm#Fuehrungen

Construction of the castle was begun in 1356 by Archbishop-Elector of Trier Bohemond II and was continued for the next 30 years by successive Electors of Trier. The construction of Burg Maus was to enforce Trier's recently acquired Rhine River toll rights and to secure Trier's borders against the Counts of Katzenelnbogen (who had built Burg Katz and Burg Rheinfels). In the latter half of the 14th century Burg Maus was one of the residences of the Elector of Trier.

Unlike its two neighbouring castles, Burg Maus was never destroyed, though it fell into disrepair in the 16th and 17th centuries. Restoration of the castle was undertaken between 1900 and 1906 under the architect Wilhelm Gärtner with attention to historical detail.

The castle suffered further damage from shelling during World War II which has since been repaired. Today Burg Maus hosts an aviary that is home to falcons, owls and eagles, and flight demonstrations are staged for visitors from late March to early October.

Local folklore attributes the name to the Counts of Katzenelnbogen's mocking of the Electors of Trier during the 30 years of construction, who reportedly said that the castle was the "mouse" that would be eaten by the "cat" of Burg Katz. The originally intended name was Burg Peterseck (or St. Peterseck). A matched castle on the left bank (to control the bank north of Burg Rheinfels) that was to be named Burg Peterberg was never constructed. Other names by which Burg Maus is known are Thurnberg (or Thurmberg) and Deuernburg.