Hay presto! Farmer unveils the 'illegal' mock-Tudor castle he tried to hide behind 40ft hay bales
By DANIEL BATES - More by this author »
Last updated at 17:50pm on 27th January 2008
Comments (64)
Hiding a needle in a haystack is easy enough.
But Robert Fidler kept something much bigger concealed among the piles of straw down on his farm... a castle.
Over the course of two years, he managed to secretly – and unlawfully – build the imposing mock Tudor structure in one of his fields, shielded behind a 40ft stack of hay bales covered by a huge tarpaulins.
Once it was finished, he and his family moved in and lived there for four years before finally revealing the development – complete with battlements and cannons – in August 2006.
Mr Fidler claims that because the building has been there for four years with no objections, it is no longer illegal.
But he is under siege from council planners, who say the castle at Honeycrock Farm, Salfords, Redhill, Surrey, will have to be knocked down.
"I can't believe they want to demolish this beautiful house," said 59-year-old Mr Fidler. "To me they are no different than vandals who just want to smash it down."
Mr Fidler, a farmer, erected the disguise in 2000 out of hundreds of 8ftx4ft bales of straw and covered the top with blue tarpaulin.
After building the castle on the site of two grain silos at a cost of £50,000, he and his wife Linda went to extraordinary lengths to keep it secret. That included keeping their son Harry, now seven, away from playschool the day he was supposed to do a painting of his home in class.
"We couldn't have him drawing a big blue haystack – people might asked questions," said 39-year-old Mrs Fidler.
Mr Fidler, who has five children from a previous marriage, said: "We moved into the house on Harry's first birthday, so he grew up looking at straw out of the windows.
"We thought it would be a boring view but birds nested there and feasted on the worms. We had several families of robins and even a duck made a nest and hatched 13 ducklings on top of the bales."
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But neighbours were unimpressed.
One said: "Nobody thought anything of it when the hay went up. It was presumed he was building a barn or something similar.
"It was a complete shock when the hay came down and this castle was in its place. Everyone else has to abide by planning laws, so why shouldn't they?"
Problems began last April when Mr Fidler, thinking he had beaten the planning system, applied for a certificate of lawfulness which is given if a property is erected but nobody objects to it after four years.
But Reigate and Banstead Council says the four-year period after which the building would be allowed to stay is void – because nobody had been given a chance to see it.
The matter will now be decided in February by the council's planning inspector, who could give the Fidlers as little as six months to tear the castle down.
The family are not alone in falling foul of planning laws.
Last November pensioners Eileen and Eamonn Kelly were told they would face prison unless they demolished the one-bedroom extension on their semi-detached home in Swanley, Kent after planners said it was "out of keeping" with the area.
More recently around a dozen Britons living in Spain have had their homes torn down after a clampdown on illegally built properties built on the coastline.
A spokeswoman for the Reigate council said: "Mr Fidler has built the house without planning permission, not sought retrospective planning permission and now claims it is legal because it has been up for four years.
"We don't think the four-year rule applies because it had been hidden behind bales of hay."
Okay, this guy is officially my hero, and anyone who wants to tear it down is a giant douche. Its not a shanty, its a FUCKING CASTLE! The only reason you'd want to tear it down was if you were a jealous, whiney prick.
Robert Fidler, I hereby present you with this award...
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
So the towns people didn't mind a castle sized pile of hay for 4 years, but they mind a castle sized castle.
And WTF? Didn't anyone see them going in and out of hay? FOR FOUR YEARS?
It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.
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Egads, that's a lot of hay! I think this guy should receive a Nobel Prize for Awesome and then everyone should stop envying his castle. Did He do all the work himself? How did nobody ever notice? It seems nigh-impossible, but then, there it is and didn't come up by magic.
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Kodiak wrote:Egads, that's a lot of hay! I think this guy should receive a Nobel Prize for Awesome and then everyone should stop envying his castle. Did He do all the work himself? How did nobody ever notice? It seems nigh-impossible, but then, there it is and didn't come up by magic.
Its an english castle. Don't jump to conclusions.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
Obviously he used giants to build the castle so quickly.
Furthermore, WTF? Tear it down? My ass, if anything that thing made your property values go up, why are you complaining about it?
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Mr Bean wrote:Obviously he used giants to build the castle so quickly.
Furthermore, WTF? Tear it down? My ass, if anything that thing made your property values go up, why are you complaining about it?
I agree. Consider the following situation: You're 12 years old and not allowed to use the stove, but you want to cook dinner for your family anyway. While everyone's gone you get to work, make a tasty supper for everyone, and clean up the mess. When your parents get home, they throw it on the floor and yell at you? Granted, he hid the building, but apparently he didn't burden anyone with the process whatsoever. It would have to pass inspection now, but if it does I don't see any legal recourse the town has.
PRFYNAFBTFCP
Captain of the MFS Frigate of Pizazz +2 vs. Douchebags - Est vicis pro nonnullus suscito vir
"Are you an idiot? What demand do you think there is for aircraft carriers that aren't government?" - Captain Chewbacca
"I keep my eighteen wives in wonderfully appointed villas by bringing the underwear of god to the heathens. They will come to know God through well protected goodies." - Gandalf
"There is no such thing as being too righteous to understand." - Darth Wong
What a monstrosity! And not just the house. Why do this couple believe that they are above the planning laws that everyone else abides by? In my area a severely disabled young man fought for years to be able to build adapted accommodation on his parent's farm, it was unfair and he won in the end but he abided by the planning process. The extreme lengths this couple went to including involving their son in this deception shows what untrustworthy individuals they are.
I'm wondering why none of the neighbors got suspicious earlier. It is . . .normal to encase your buildings in swathes of hay for years at a time in that part of England?
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CaptainChewbacca wrote:
Okay, this guy is officially my hero, and anyone who wants to tear it down is a giant douche. Its not a shanty, its a FUCKING CASTLE! The only reason you'd want to tear it down was if you were a jealous, whiney prick.
Aren't we talking about the country that invented the word prick?
For those of you supporting him, why do you feel he should be above the law ?
Is there something really screwed up with his local planning laws ?
Since nobody has said anything specific, I have to assume that there isn't.
Given the lengths he went to avoiding the planning laws, I can't help but think that there is something wrong with the castle. Something that would of been caught if he built it legally.
How's this for one: Where's the building inspector's report?
Because as far as I can tell from the article, all it sounds like is a bunch of people whining down at the city hall that they thought said castle was a barn and they feel cheated.
I mean, it's not like most people in England would call a castle an eyesore, a barn on the other hand...
bilateralrope wrote:For those of you supporting him, why do you feel he should be above the law ?
Is there something really screwed up with his local planning laws ?
Since nobody has said anything specific, I have to assume that there isn't.
Given the lengths he went to avoiding the planning laws, I can't help but think that there is something wrong with the castle. Something that would of been caught if he built it legally.
If I understand the situation, he lives in an area that is designated as some sort of country-side preserve, so it is basically illegal to build anything new there. As the one commenter indicated, a crippled boy had a huge fight just to make his family residence handicap accessible. If I understood the other article I read, his plan would never have been approved to begin with.
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bilateralrope wrote:For those of you supporting him, why do you feel he should be above the law ?
Is there something really screwed up with his local planning laws ?
Since nobody has said anything specific, I have to assume that there isn't.
Given the lengths he went to avoiding the planning laws, I can't help but think that there is something wrong with the castle. Something that would of been caught if he built it legally.
It seems that if the building passes inspection now, it should be fine. Perhaps the fact that nobody inspected it for 4 years makes it exempt from inspection? In that case, I think the townsfolk would have some recourse, but then how did he have a huge stack of hay bales on some land for 4 years with no barn in sight and nobody asked questions? I think the jokes on city hall and they need to reformed their laws which they've already admitted aren't fair.
PRFYNAFBTFCP
Captain of the MFS Frigate of Pizazz +2 vs. Douchebags - Est vicis pro nonnullus suscito vir
"Are you an idiot? What demand do you think there is for aircraft carriers that aren't government?" - Captain Chewbacca
"I keep my eighteen wives in wonderfully appointed villas by bringing the underwear of god to the heathens. They will come to know God through well protected goodies." - Gandalf
"There is no such thing as being too righteous to understand." - Darth Wong
To be fair, in rural areas it isn't uncommon to have incredibly large haystacks, dirt piles, or debris fields that appear to be in the middle of nowhere and for no purpose for long periods of time.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
Dude, sometimes planning laws can be beyond retarded. We got fined for putting a roof over part of our deck, because apparently no one else on the street did that. Therefore, our house wasn't the same but different as the other houses (we had white stucco, and the second house on each side is the same, along with a fourth house on one side - you can't have two houses the same colour next to each other, apparently). This is ignoring the house that's technically on the next block having a covered deck and balcony, or the house next to us having a covered deck (technically the balcony above it is open, so it passes?).
Yes, but he forgot to put in the moat. Now the forces of the Planning Council will be able to come right up and he can't even make a siege of it.
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No... See, when the battle begins, he'll press a button and reveal that he's actually built a moat and concealed it by putting a layer of dirt over it!
Alternatively, the castle's actually on top of a mountain. The fake ground self-destructs when the siege starts.
