Hay presto! Farmer unveils the ‘illegal’ mock-Tudor castle he tried to hide behind 40ft hay bales
‘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.’
