Castles and inspiration

I’ve realized over the years my favorite kind of castle aren’t the ones with ropes and recreated bedrooms and someone cheerfully telling me where the bed would have been. Not the guided tour, not the velvet cushions, not the attempt to make the past comfortable.

Give me ruins.

Give me collapsed towers, broken arches, walls that stop suddenly. In my mine writing retreat in Shropshire we stopped at Clun Castle, and it was everything I love. Wind-scoured stone. Empty windows open to the sky. Grass where floors used to be. A single information board that says this is what we know—and then steps back. I love to stand there and the rest happens in my head.

Where I can imagine the missing rooms, the weight of the tower before it fell, the people who climbed those steps when they still existed. Places where time hasn’t been smoothed over, only worn down.

Maybe that’s why I love them so much. They leave space. And space is where stories live. 🙂

(If you give me a board with facts and let me wander, I’m happy for hours.)

— RJ