Where to live post SHTF?

[Offgrid]

Castles were great 3 centuries ago , however a 360 excavator and a hammer attachment and the walls would be down . Drawbridge firebomb and wait . Strong gates large heavy truck or oxy acetyline . Your castle is just the same as a bunker but bigger and more than likely on the horizon . Good idea but..........

Not so sure on the excavator. Firstly some of these castles have walls 30 feet thick and defenders would be able to retaliate. Also many have tight approaches and narrow entrances. Virtually impossible to get a large truck to the gate. I wouldn't fancy trying to cut through a door with defenders above me dropping all sorts of unpleasant stuff through murder holes. Firebombs have existed for at least 2 thousand years and have not always worked. I think you'd be in trouble if attackers had explosives but that would always be the case wherever you are.

[Offgrid]

An actual castle is probably just going to be a big target and would need hundreds of people. In the event I'm forced to bug out / become a refugee, I'd head for a fortified house, or a small stately home that could be fortified.

I've thought the same in the past but surely a fortified house is merely an inferior castle. A big unfortified house is also a big target but without the 30 foot thick walls. If the opposition knows where you are and you have stuff they want you're a target anywhere. How could you ever build defences as good as a castle?

[Offgrid]

Castles were great 3 centuries ago , however a 360 excavator and a hammer attachment and the walls would be down . Drawbridge firebomb and wait . Strong gates large heavy truck or oxy acetyline . Your castle is just the same as a bunker but bigger and more than likely on the horizon . Good idea but..........

My thoughts exactly.
While they'd keep out those armed with sticks and stones, and they only did that with organised armed defence on the inside they'd have a much tougher job these days. It's worth remembering that many moats have been drained (and people these days can mostly swim) drawbridges now fixed down, and as said above modern tools. It was a tough job getting through a steel portcullis back in the 15th century, I wonder how long it would take an angle grinder now...

How would you feel trying to hook up a generator (if you have fuel) and use an angle grinder cutting through a ten inch thick door that leads into a tiny square room with another thick door plus 10 murder holes above it. All the time I'd be sitting above firing arrows or shotguns at you? How long? I reckon it would feel like forever.
Or swimming across a most while some oik dropped rocks on you?
Another point- if modern tools were still working why couldn't I reinforce those doors with more steel? Or use modern weapons to stop you doing anything at all?

[Deeps]

Can I offer an alternative scenario Offgrid (good name by the way). Is it not more likely that you have your services cut off for 6 hours (for example) or workies digging up a road find a WW2 bomb (I think you stay in Gosport ????) than you end up having to hole up in a castle and fight off the hoi poloi. Prepping isn't just about the S hitting the fan, its more likely to be mundane than anything more serious. Its definitely fun to dip into the extreme side of it for a mental exercise but for me that's all it is, I'll be a very unhappy bunny if I end up having to leave Casa Deeps and run off to the woods. I'm equipped and prepared to do it but it ain't my first choice.

[grenfell]

On the surface it sounds an attractive idea , who wouldn't want to be the Lord of their own castle? However, as others have said it takes numbers to protect a castle and I'd have serious doubts as to whether it would be possible to produce enough food within those castle walls . Another thing to consider , even ignoring the point about modern weapons negating the strengths of a castle , is that many of our castles aren't in a fit state of repair to repel a small medieavel force and would take considerable effort to make them suitable. Many have missing or part missing walls , windows that would need filling in , roofs to replace and large areas to clear outside the walls , medieavel castles were generally surrounded by open spaces to denigh cover to potential attackers. It all adds up to an awful lot of work which considering you may have very limited use of power tools for instance will end up having to be done by hand.
Turning the tables a bit I personally wouldn't try to assault a castle , assuming I had a small army at my disposal , I would simply place a handful of snipers in position to pick off anyone on the battlements or attempting to leave. That nice strong castle becomes virtually a prison .
You'd probably be better off creating a community that would be able to provide a flexible , mobile defence with perhaps a strengthened redout as a last resort.

[Arzosah]

Great discussion! When I first got into prepping, I'd wonder about this sort of thing, but like most people, I think it's impractical as a first response to an emergency. Now, if it were *triffids* that we're holing up against, maybe. In that case, any stately home with external shutters (or the ability to instal them) and a walled garden, would be fine - think Wakehurst Place https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wakehurst which has one of the Millenium seedbanks on hand too

For a castle, this is one of my favourites: http://www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/King%27s- ... &feature=1

partly because of the name, admittedly, but partly because, being so old, it really was built for business. Good ramparts too.

And twenty years after an event of some sort, people might actually live in this sort of place, or focus on this sort of place while using current housing stock - I doubt anyone would build *new* houses, but places like Lewes Castle or Norwich Castle have towns immediately surrounding them, and could be used by people living there then to retreat to if marauders came through.

Not envisaging this myself - its a future history I'm writing!

[sethorly]

I'm bugging in, but if I became a refugee I'd head to a youth hostel. Some are stately homes/small fortified house type buildings, and would already have like-minded outdoorsey people there. At full capacity they'd have the ideal population size (imho) for mutual benefit (<250, "Dunbar's number"). They're also often in remote locations, some with acres of walled-off arable land and already sporting farm pigs/goats/chickens etc.

[Brambles]

I always had Rushton Triangular lodge set as my default bolt hole should the Walking Dead ever come fruition.

http://www.britainexpress.com/attractio ... ction=3532

It has all the attributes of a castle in one small but perfectly formed building, close to a water source, woods and the soil is good for growing and it probably wouldn't get a second look.

[ukpreppergrrl]

Not so sure on the excavator. Firstly some of these castles have walls 30 feet thick and defenders would be able to retaliate. Also many have tight approaches and narrow entrances. Virtually impossible to get a large truck to the gate.

You'd have to be sure that the castle you picked hadn't had all the Health & Safety bits retrospectively added: like an entrance somewhere (not the front as that is undoubtedly listed and no alterations can be made) large enough to accept a fire engine or at the very least an ambulance. Then there's the back parts, unseen by the public, to which all the lorries and vans deposit the food, tourist tat and general day-to-day stuff necessary to keep a modern castle open to the General Public. Unlikely to be more than a small padlocked gate with a wire fence there.

And then there's the longstanding problem with castles (or indeed any fortified house or bunker): they can be sieged! What keeps me out, also keeps you in. No need to anglegrind the portcullis whilst having boiling oil poured on your head, just have some strategically positioned snipers picking off anyone popping out for fish 'n' chips or the pizza delivery boy coming in etc. (yes being slightly facetious here! sorry) , and unless you prestocked the castle with months of food (which you won't be allowed to do before the apocalypse unless you personally own said castle), you'll soon have to surrender.

The castle is big and everyone can see it and if someone goes there to defend themselves it will be known, not least because of the sheer number of people it will take to run a castle and the amount of food that will have to be taken in on a daily basis. There is not space inside a castle to grow enough food and raise enough livestock to feed the number of people there. There never has been. It's always been the castle's weakness.

I would posit that a castle is simply too big a fortified structure to be useful in an immediate fecal splattered world. Perhaps, once law and order is more settled and people are living in communes, but not as a first resort. I am with the others who would pick much smaller buildings - these are always still subject to siege of course, but are probably less of a target, less likely to be picked up on the radar. And they have the advantage that you are more likely to be able to pre-stock as as suitable BOL.

[poppypiesdad]

Castles were great 3 centuries ago , however a 360 excavator and a hammer attachment and the walls would be down . Drawbridge firebomb and wait . Strong gates large heavy truck or oxy acetyline . Your castle is just the same as a bunker but bigger and more than likely on the horizon . Good idea but..........

Not so sure on the excavator. Firstly some of these castles have walls 30 feet thick and defenders would be able to retaliate. Also many have tight approaches and narrow entrances. Virtually impossible to get a large truck to the gate. I wouldn't fancy trying to cut through a door with defenders above me dropping all sorts of unpleasant stuff through murder holes. Firebombs have existed for at least 2 thousand years and have not always worked. I think you'd be in trouble if attackers had explosives but that would always be the case wherever you are.

And that is my dear boy you dont know , may i offer a suggestion for you and find out about sappers , these ingenious men dug tunnels below the foundations of castle walls and used there immense size all 30 ft thick of it to bring them down by there sheer size .Quite clever really . So there you are in your castle and a 30 ton 360 jcb excavator slowly clawing at the walls with you "safe" inside .

Castles were great 3 centuries ago , however a 360 excavator and a hammer attachment and the walls would be down . Drawbridge firebomb and wait . Strong gates large heavy truck or oxy acetyline . Your castle is just the same as a bunker but bigger and more than likely on the horizon . Good idea but..........

My thoughts exactly.
While they'd keep out those armed with sticks and stones, and they only did that with organised armed defence on the inside they'd have a much tougher job these days. It's worth remembering that many moats have been drained (and people these days can mostly swim) drawbridges now fixed down, and as said above modern tools. It was a tough job getting through a steel portcullis back in the 15th century, I wonder how long it would take an angle grinder now...

How would you feel trying to hook up a generator (if you have fuel) and use an angle grinder cutting through a ten inch thick door that leads into a tiny square room with another thick door plus 10 murder holes above it. All the time I'd be sitting above firing arrows or shotguns at you? How long? I reckon it would feel like forever.
Or swimming across a most while some oik dropped rocks on you?
Another point- if modern tools were still working why couldn't I reinforce those doors with more steel? Or use modern weapons to stop you doing anything at all?

Hmmm arrows , shotguns what a well equipped castle . Just leaving them lying about ..... draw bridges , murder holes oh my my .
The truth is and belive me i know . You would be a target . No matter how many arrows or shotgun cartriges you have . You will run out eventually or use enough rocks from the walls that the invaders just walk in .

Welcome to the forums . Where every suggestion to your plan is a personal attack on you. But you did ask our opinions