I’ve been a “castle builder” almost as long as I’ve been a LEGO builder–the medieval theme was my first love, and I’ve built scenes of knights chasing pigs, fighting battles, confronting dragons, riding through cathedrals, battling snowstorms, being ambushed in forests–you name it! But I had never built a proper castle for my knights until… well, until now!

I have two dream castles: one is almost a palace, set in a beautiful landscape, with hundreds of towers and sparkling crenellations and stuff like that. This one is the other one: a compact stone affair with every possible convenience and inconvenience I could squeeze into such a tiny space.

Of course, that includes a working drawbridge.

I’ve yet to figure out what the truly proper direction for the slopes at the top of the battlement crenelations on a castle really is: should they slope out, so the arrows glance harmlessly upward, or should they slope in, so as to present the maximum defense height? I slightly suspect that medieval builders didn’t know either and just did whatever struck their fancy at the moment. The outward slope seemed to suit this castle, so that’s what I ended up with.

As you can see, this castle doesn’t have a very big footprint–less than 32×32 when it’s all shut up.

Nevertheless, it’s packed full of details, starting with a floating cobblestone floor on the bottom. I was slightly lacking in foresight here; I built the walls first and then had to carefully lower each piece of loose cobblestone into place!

Around back I broke up the grey walls with this tudor-style corner building. I chose black and white to be in keeping with the Black Falcon’s colors.

My first plan for the edges of this large tower was to use 1×2 tiles all the way up–but I quickly ran out and so the tower got a more weathered look.

Inside are three rooms–the bottom one is an armory, with a weapons rack, a statue, a chest, and opening doors.

Next is the library, full of books and scrolls and papers!

The highest story is the owner’s bedroom, complete with a canopy bed…

…and a chandelier that actually swings!

One of the hardest parts of this build was the roof over the tudor section, especially the corner.

I wasn’t able to get quite as smooth a seam as I would have liked, but it didn’t turn out too bad.

Under this roof is the dining hall and fireplace.

Underneath that are the stables!

As you can see, you have to take the chimney off to access the stables. In fact, the chimney locks the roof in place and keeps everything snuggly together.

And there you have it: the first minfigure-size castle I’ve ever built, but hopefully not the last!

You might also be interested in these other creations I’ve built: