Julie B. (heartinthehighlands) reviewed Castles In The Air: The Restoration Adventures Of Two Young Optimists And A Crumbling Old Mansion on + 54 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
i loved this book. it caught my interest right from the start and it was hard to put down. she is a good writer and her story reads almost like an adventure/mystery. the things they went through and the conditions under which they lived for a very long time, are amazing.
you find yourself so grateful that they restored this castle. what a loss to history it would have been if the castle had been left to its crumbling.
i didn't read it until we returned from our uk trip. i wish i had known of its existence, as we were 5 minutes' drive away...maybe someday we can make another trip and we could stay in one of their B&B rooms; although i really have no desire to meet ghosts and they undoubtedly do have them.
you find yourself so grateful that they restored this castle. what a loss to history it would have been if the castle had been left to its crumbling.
i didn't read it until we returned from our uk trip. i wish i had known of its existence, as we were 5 minutes' drive away...maybe someday we can make another trip and we could stay in one of their B&B rooms; although i really have no desire to meet ghosts and they undoubtedly do have them.
Patricia S. (lucky7) reviewed Castles In The Air: The Restoration Adventures Of Two Young Optimists And A Crumbling Old Mansion on
Helpful Score: 2
"Restoring the sixteenth-century Gwydir Castle" on the back of this book caught my interest as I've so enjoyed reading Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh HF books. There's a "romantic aura" to the idea of actually buying and restoring a "crumbling old stone mansion". Also, it brought back memories of my first house that required a significant amount of remodeling. Although my husband and I did knock down a wall with sledge hammers and do most of the other work ourselves it in no way compared to this historical undertaking (we're talking about 40 rooms here). I mention this only because if you've done some DIY projects, you'll be amazed at their accomplishment. In America, I've no doubt these "ruins" would have been razed decades (if not centuries) ago, such was the disrepair.
In northern Wales, this young couple faced squatters, bats, and rodents. They found skeletons, reported ghosts, and met some incredible challenges from nature. There were chapters where I thought, "this is where I would have bailed out". Judy Corbett writes her narrative as if she's sitting opposite you sharing a cup of tea. Every component of the restoration is fascinating. Her description of bone-chilling damp cold had me pulling up the comforter and I felt her exhaustion after 18-hour days of toil and grit. There's humor when fund raising needs bring paying visitors, the suspense of a surprising deal with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and even a sojourn with royalty. I'm glad she decided to share the "adventure". One negative...I craved more detail, most chapters were disappointingly too short.
The plus... they have a website describing the rooms they rent, weddings they host, and a general history of the former occupants.
In northern Wales, this young couple faced squatters, bats, and rodents. They found skeletons, reported ghosts, and met some incredible challenges from nature. There were chapters where I thought, "this is where I would have bailed out". Judy Corbett writes her narrative as if she's sitting opposite you sharing a cup of tea. Every component of the restoration is fascinating. Her description of bone-chilling damp cold had me pulling up the comforter and I felt her exhaustion after 18-hour days of toil and grit. There's humor when fund raising needs bring paying visitors, the suspense of a surprising deal with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and even a sojourn with royalty. I'm glad she decided to share the "adventure". One negative...I craved more detail, most chapters were disappointingly too short.
The plus... they have a website describing the rooms they rent, weddings they host, and a general history of the former occupants.
Cathy C. (cathyskye) -
Helpful Score: 1
First Line: I have just had to dry the sheets with a hair drier again before getting back into bed.
Judy Corbett and her husband-to-be Peter Welford wanted very much to find an old ruin of a house to restore so they could move out of the rat race of city life. They found their dream ruin tucked away in the foothills of the Snowdonian Mountains in Wales, but they had no real idea the challenges they were agreeing to take on when they signed all that paperwork.
Gwydir Castle was Judy Corbett's favorite type of dwelling: as each successive generation of owners wanted to "smarten up" the place, they just slapped an addition in the current style on one end or the other instead of making the entire building look homogeneous. Parts of Gwydir dated back to the dissolution of the monasteries. When Judy and Peter found it, some of the rooms had been turned into a noisome sort of pub.
As I read Judy's account of the restoration, I swore it must have never stopped raining the entire time:
"When it's very dark in the castle and the batteries have run out in the torch [flashlight] and I can't find a dry match to light a candle, the symphony of drips guides me through the rooms. I have learnt to distinguish a coal scuttle from a paint pot and know exactly where I am by the tone of the drip."
Book bloggers from around the world would not be able to fault Corbett on her criteria for her future home: 'The yardstick by which I measured the suitability of any potential house was whether I could imagine myself reading in it."
Naturally the course of restoration did not run smooth, even with the help of workmen with interesting names like "the Scouse git" and the approval of a resident spirit or two. The sheer amount of work and discomfort that those two endured while restoring Gwydir Castle is jaw-dropping. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever undertake anything remotely resembling this gargantuan restoration project, but Corbett loved every minute of it, and her joy and feeling of accomplishment are plain as each small bit is completed.
If you love reading about old houses being brought back to life by people who love what they're doing and have a true sense of adventure, you will love reading Castles in the Air. Corbett not only has a knack for restoration, she's a deft storyteller as well.
Judy Corbett and her husband-to-be Peter Welford wanted very much to find an old ruin of a house to restore so they could move out of the rat race of city life. They found their dream ruin tucked away in the foothills of the Snowdonian Mountains in Wales, but they had no real idea the challenges they were agreeing to take on when they signed all that paperwork.
Gwydir Castle was Judy Corbett's favorite type of dwelling: as each successive generation of owners wanted to "smarten up" the place, they just slapped an addition in the current style on one end or the other instead of making the entire building look homogeneous. Parts of Gwydir dated back to the dissolution of the monasteries. When Judy and Peter found it, some of the rooms had been turned into a noisome sort of pub.
As I read Judy's account of the restoration, I swore it must have never stopped raining the entire time:
"When it's very dark in the castle and the batteries have run out in the torch [flashlight] and I can't find a dry match to light a candle, the symphony of drips guides me through the rooms. I have learnt to distinguish a coal scuttle from a paint pot and know exactly where I am by the tone of the drip."
Book bloggers from around the world would not be able to fault Corbett on her criteria for her future home: 'The yardstick by which I measured the suitability of any potential house was whether I could imagine myself reading in it."
Naturally the course of restoration did not run smooth, even with the help of workmen with interesting names like "the Scouse git" and the approval of a resident spirit or two. The sheer amount of work and discomfort that those two endured while restoring Gwydir Castle is jaw-dropping. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever undertake anything remotely resembling this gargantuan restoration project, but Corbett loved every minute of it, and her joy and feeling of accomplishment are plain as each small bit is completed.
If you love reading about old houses being brought back to life by people who love what they're doing and have a true sense of adventure, you will love reading Castles in the Air. Corbett not only has a knack for restoration, she's a deft storyteller as well.
