French Life-expat France

At one end of our property we have a field, about a hectare (2 1/2 acres) in size, with good views, easy access to the road, in a beautiful setting and not overlooked by anyone else. Apart from the farmer who cuts the grass as hay for his cattle, no one has been in the field for the last five years. Often people ask us why we don’t sell the field with planning permission for a house, or build a house there ourselves, and in truth it might be a good idea.

I don’t know if we would get planning permission, we are not in a development zone, but it might make sense to find out if we have an enormously valuable asset just sat there. It is kind of at the back of my mind that if we ever get fed up with running gites, we could sell up the house and gites, and build a house there for ourselves, but we are talking 20 years into the future. But I was just reading in the news about a much better idea.

Somewhere in Burgundy, deep in the forest in a place called Guedelon near Treigny, someone is quietly building a castle. Not a big house, a real actual castle with towers and turrets and a moat. Madness? Perhaps not.

The castle is being built with strict adherence to the building traditions of the olden days. No cement mixers and cranes, just rock, pulleys, rope and anything that was used for building 500 years ago. Horses instead of lorries, hammers and chisels instead of modern stone-cutting tools. Still has a hint of madness, perhaps, but sounds like fun.

But, the site is now a major tourist attraction. Hundreds of thousands of people each year pay to see the castle being built, paying $2.6 million last year for the pleasure. And when the castle is finished (another 20 years or so) they plan to carry on and buildthe rest of the village around it.

Third part of the puzzle is that in places like the Dordogne, ‘re-enactments’ are big business. Visit an authentic stone age village, see troglodyte caves, learn about life during the plague years, you get the idea.

So, I wonder, why don’t we get planning permission for our field, build an authentic medieval village using authentic techniques with people paying to watch, and then charge people to visit the finished product. I can cope with an extra couple of million dollars a year.

There are a couple of obstacles to overcome first. First problem is up-front cash. If someone reading this can arrange $500,000 initial funding for my project, that would be a good start. Second obstacle is convincing the local stone masons that they would like to dress up in leather tunics and cotton bonnets and be gawped at by tourists.

And the third, and biggest, obstacle is Mrs B. Curiously she doesn’t yet see the need for a medieval building site in our garden.

So I have some way to go before I can go ahead. Meanwhile, if you are a big shot investment banker reading this I’ve got just the investment you have been looking for. I’ll keep working on Mrs B.