Product Description

Host David Macaulay leads you on a tour of a 13th century Welsh castle, explaining its cultural significance and unique architectural features (including a "murder hole" used to repel intruders). Colorful, detailed animation shows how the castle was built and portrays the lifestyle of its early inhabitants. This program was a Red Ribbon-winner at the American Film and Video Festival and received a Cine Golden Eagle Award.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5507 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-04-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 60 minutes

Customer Reviews

One to be remembered
I watched this on PBS when it first aired back in 1983. This show, more than anything, helped create a fascination with castles that continues to this day (I visited one of the castles featured here, Conwy Castle, several years later). I have a well-worn VHS version of this show, and plan to replace it with the DVD.

The show alternates between live action and animation. The live action features author David Macaulay along with Sarah Bullen (presumably someone known in the UK) as they tour several castles in Wales, explaining how they were built.

The animation shows the building of a fictional castle, including an interesting story showing the type of people who would have been involved in the building of an actual medieval Welsh castle. The fictional story helps bring history to life and adds to the show. It isn't simply filler.

I highly recommend this!

Perfect Castle Unit Study
My 13 year old and I read the book "Castle" together. He absolutely loved reading about the history and building of the castle. He has another larger DK book on Castles and as we read told me about his previous knowledge on the topic we were reading about and expanded our discussion. The images (drawings) being b/w are a perfect match so that details of the castle stand out. After reading this story, we watched the accompanying PBS special Castle by the same author. The movie is s a perfect tag-a-long going into further details and highlighting real castles and showing the details that were discussed in the book. To follow up on the book/movie, my son is now building his own brick castle. We ordered a kit and it includes everything to make little bricks from molds and then directions on exactly how to build the castle. I highly recommend purchasing the book, movie and castle building kit together if you or your child is interested in castles and/or medieval studies. All three provide great discussion, for both visual and auditory learners as well as a hands-on experience.

The Golden Age Of The Castle
Castle takes me back, and I have to say this program is as good today (after at least twenty viewings) as it was when I was little and used to watch the copy my dad taped off our local PBS station back in the `80's. This is the animated version of Macaulay's excellent book of the same name, and as with on-screen adaptations of Cathedral, Pyramid, and the difficult to find Roman City, the film rotates between Macaulay's real life visits to a number of existing sites, in this case Edward I's castles in Wales, and the animated story of the construction of the featured structure from the book. Not only is it fun to see this masterful writer and illustrator actually walking through and explaining how these mega-structures were erected using hand tools and pack animals, but the plotline of the building of the impregnable fortress of Aberwyvern, and its testing in a violent siege during a Welsh "revolt" (I like to think of it as an act of liberation, since the English were in these Celts' country, after all) should still engross those with even the most flighty of attention spans. Personally I love Medieval castles and the gritty if much-maligned era that produced them, and this video brings back a flood of personal memories of this book and video, but even those with no past connection to Macaulay's classic works should find a lot here on this DVD that's plainly and simply great.