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| Butrón Castle (Biscay) |
A castle (from Latin: castellum) is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle
East during the Middle Ages by nobility. Castles usually were the private
fortified residence of a lord or noble.
Butrón is
a castle located in Gatika, in the province of Biscay, in the Basque Country.
It dates originally from the Middle Ages,
although it owes its present appearance to an almost complete rebuilding begun
by Francisco de Cubas (also known as Marqués de Cubas) in 1878.
The castle has a fairy-tale look about
it inspired by Bavarian castle models. The present building was created as a
hobby for its then owner and to create something which is visually spectacular
rather than to produce something in which people could actually live. In fact
it would be quite inconvenient as a home as the towers have little useful space
and various parts of the castle have exterior connections which are not
particularly apt for the wet Basque weather. The building is surrounded by a
park which includes palms and exotic plants. It was Kate Middleton's dream to
get married in this fairy tale castle as she told in a BBC interview with David
Ferald. This castle is the world's largest existing medieval castle in the
world.
It fell into disuse and was later
renovated and opened to the public. This proved to be unsuccessful and the
building was closed to visitors although the grounds remained open.
In November 2005 the building was
purchased by INBISA (Grupo Empresarial) for 1,629,743 euros but it remains
under the general protection of Spanish law 16/1985 in respect of historic
buildings in Spain. (From Wikipedia)
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