I was watching YouTube back in 2014 and stumbled across a video of a Lego fair in America. There was a guy being interviewed about a Lego model he’d built that was based on a real German castle. I was always looking for interesting topics to write about so I did some digging and found out that the builder was Robert Carney. I was quietly hoping that he’d made other models, perhaps even Castell Coch.
I was amazed to find on his website that he’d made dozens of Lego castles! Including two of Castell Coch. I fired off an email and Robert was kind enough to answer some questions and let me share photos of his amazing work.
This article was originally published on Tongwynlais.com.
Robert Carney has painstakingly built over 140 castles from around the world using Lego bricks. Castell Coch was the first Welsh castle he built in 1987. Robert chose Castell Coch as his brick collection was significantly smaller back then.
With a larger number of bricks available, Robert built a second model of Castell Coch in 2007. This model took about 3 weeks to build in his spare time, and he estimates it took about 15,000 individual Lego pieces to complete.
This model is amazingly detailed, as you can see in this comparison. The only piece of the castle not made from standard Lego bricks is the picture of the Madonna and Child above the drawbridge.
I asked Robert which part of the construction was the hardest and he explained the curved wall section was particularly challenging. The size of this later model made the details easier to build than his original one.
Robert provides detailed plans for each castle he builds so you can have a go yourselves. And he’s happy to help if anyone’s trying to reproduce one of his models.
I’ve got to say a big thank you to Robert for answering all my questions and very kindly letting me reproduce his images and plans. Now I’m off to the the Lego shop to buy some more bricks!
This is the best I could do…
Image Credit – Cadw
Cadw and Equinox launched their “Pack Your Imagination” campaign in spring 2015, which included Bob’s time-lapse videos of Caernarfon Castle and Rhuddlan Castle. The campaign won several awards, was covered by the national news and concluded with Bob visiting Wales to announce competition winners.
